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BUILDERS OF MODERN INDIA

K.M. MUNSHI

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V.B. KULKARNI

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BUILDERS OF MODERN INDIA

K. M. MUNSHI

V. B. KULKARNI

PUBLICATIONS DIVISION

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

1st Edition: 1959 (Saka 1881)
Fifth Reprint: 2014 (Saka 1936)

ISBN 978-81-230-1917-8
BMI-ENG-REP-013-2014-15

Price : ? 205.00

Published by the Additional Director General, Publications Division,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India,
Soochna Bhawan, C.G.O. Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi - 110 003.

Website: publicationsdivision.nic.in

Editor: Krishna Prasad M.V. / Bidur Bharti

Cover Design : Asha Saxena

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ABOUT THE SERIES

The objective of this series is to record, for the present
and future generations, the story of the struggles and achievements
of the eminent sons and daughters of India who have been
instrumental in our national renaissance and attainment of
independence. Except in a few cases, such authoritative
biographies have not been available.

The Series is planned as handy volumes written by knowledgeable
people giving a brief account, in simple words, of the lifetime
and activities of these eminent leaders. They are not intended
either to be comprehensive studies or to replace the more
elaborate writings.

PREFACE

When the invitation from the Publications Division of the
Government of India came to me to write the biography of Mr.
K. M. Munshi for its Builders of Modem India Series, I readily
accepted it. I knew Mr. Munshi well, especially during the last
decade of his life. His health was not always good, but the
brilliance of his mind remained undimmed. He could discuss any
difficult subject with ease and authority. I often asked him
disconcerting questions on the “ifs” of history.

For instance, what would have been the fate and future
of India if his campaign for Akhand Hindustan or undivided
India had succeeded? In that event, how would the free
institutions in the country have fared? Again, would parliamentary
democracy have struck deeper roots in the Indian soil if there
had been a stable division of political power between two more
or less evenly matched parties, as in Britain, for example?
Drawing liberally from his vast knowledge and experience, Mr.
Munshi unhesitatingly gave the most comprehensive and
convincing answers. He often engaged me in a detailed
discussion on the powers of the President of the Indian Union
and of the Governors of States.

On all such occasions, Mrs. Lilavati Munshi used to be
present. She did not choose to participate actively in our
discussions but her occasional observation, apt and brilliant,
gave a new zest to our talk. Mr. and Mrs. Munshi were a
remarkable couple and it was both a pleasure and a privilege to
be in their cultured company.

I am indebted to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan for placing
at my disposal all the necessary material for writing this
biography. Mr. S.Ramakrishan, its Executive Secretary, who
was close to Mr. Munshi, readily enlightened me on some of the
points which needed elucidation. Mr. S.C.Tolat, who also knew
the Munshis well, was equally obliging. Mr. C.K.Venkataraman
showed exemplary patience and promptitude in giving me
whatever literature I wanted. I am indebted to my daughter,
Mrs. Pramila S.Kulkami, for preparing the index to this book.
As in the case of my other books, Mr. V. A.E. Rasquinha was
most helpful to me in the preparation of this volume.

V. B. KULKARNI

CONTENTS

Early Years

State of the Country

The Lawyer

IV.

Hie Exemplars

Swaraj Without Substance

VI.

The Communal Canker

VII.

The War

vm.

The Partition:

(i) Gandhi-Jinnah Talks

103

(ii) The Holocaust

112

IX.

Princely India

122

Hyderabad

137

XI.

The Constitution

172

XII.

Minister and Governor

191

xrn.

Education and National Language

219

XIV.

Man of Letters

246

XV.

The Bhavan

265

XVI.

Swatantra

278

xvn.

The Man

295

■ :

• -

Early Years

KANHAIYALAL MANEKLAL MUNSHI was a great
Irujarati and an eminent Indian. He was endowed with a
wideranging and versatile mind and was undoubtedly an
outstanding builder of modem India. He admired the antiquity
and amplitude of his country’s heritage and was proud of the
fact that it had contributed to the enrichment of the civilization
of one-fourth of the human race. He could see the indelible
imprints of this contribution in large parts of South-East Asia.
Munshi was, however, a realist. He saw the futility of seeking
to revive an irretrievable past but was convinced that India’s
future greatness should be founded on her historic achievements.
He accordingly built a number of cultural and educational
institutions, of which the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is the greatest
monument to his vision and veneration for all that is great and
noble in his motherland.

In dynamism and restlessness, Munshi resembled
Bismarck, the great German statesman of the nineteenth century.
It was said of Bismarck that he was by temperament one whom
life consumed but rest killed. Munshi was endowed with a
similar temperament. He was like the busy smith with many
irons in the fire. He was a lawyer and even in an era of legal
giants he rose to the pinnacle in his profession. He would have
won many more glittering prizes had he given his undivided
attention to his legal practice, but his abounding and creative
energies drove him relentlessly into ever-widening fields of

K. M. Munshi

activity. He enthusiastically joined the great movement for
national liberation by interrupting a successful legal career and
spuming the sweets and delights of an affluent life. His sacrifice
was remarkable since in his earlier years he had felt the pangs
of penury.

Munshi was, however, much more than a lawyer and
a patriot. He was a distinguished man of letters whose contribution
to Gujarati literature is as immense as it is durable. He wrote in
an endless stream novels, stories, romances, historical and
puranic dramas, biographies and critical miscellaneous essays,
including addresses. And yet this colossus of Gujarati literature
began his literary career by writing in English. He felt for
sometime in his early years that he would never be able to master
the elusive foreign tongue, but he soon realised that a truly
educated man had no vernacular. He accordingly set out to gain
proficiency in that language and succeeded admirably in his
attempt. His numerous books in English fully bear this out. In fact,
he could set off the most trifling common places in the most
superb language.

Munshi was also a scholar who had studied with deep
diligence the abundant literature of both his motherland and the
West. He loved Sanskrit, knowing that it held the key to the
immense storehouse of Indian knowledge and enlightenment. As
a student of literature, he was naturally drawn towards Indian
art and architecture which at one time had become the envy of
mankind. Munshi was an idealist and a thinker but he spumed
the temptation of immuring himself in the ivory tower. He was
a humanitarian and a reformer. Both as a creative writer and as
a journalist, he poured out a steady stream of literature pleading
for the liberation of the Indian society from the shackles of a
dead past. He was also an able administrator and proved his
mettle as a minister both at the State and the national level. He

Early Years

thus played numerous roles and yet he was always unhurried,
relaxed and easily accessible. His wife, Mrs. Lilavati Munshi,
was a tower of strength to him. She was indeed a remarkable
lady whose considerable literary talents and sacrifice in the
cause of the nation have entitled her to an honoured place
among the eminent women of India.

Munshi was born on December 30, 1887 at Broach, a
town in Gujarat State on the Gulf of Cambay. A port town, it
was an important Buddhist centre in the seventh century. Till the
fourteenth century it was the chief port of Western India.
Munshi claimed his lineage from an ancient Brahmin family
which displayed a remarkable capacity for survival and for
gaining reasonable affluence through judicious adaptability. In
addition to its resilience, it had learnt the value of strictly
adhering to the traditions of learning and enlightenment. Since
the establishment of the Sultanate of Delhi in the thirteenth
century, there was a steady expansion of Muslim rule in large
parts of the Indian sub-continent. Like the rest of their
countrymen, the Munshis submitted to the inevitable with a
sense of realism. One of them was stated to have been in the
service of Sultan Muhammad Bin Tughlug, who ascended the
throne of Delhi in 1325, The Sultan has gone down in history as
a parricide and as an eccentric of rare vintage. He was
undoubtedly a monster of cruelty but he was also a learned man
with a high sense of justice. He cheerfully accepted punishment
for wronging an eminent Hindu after he was found guilty by a
fearless Kazi.

The Munshis were, however, not alone in moving with the
times. While Muslim rule certainly established Islam as the
religion of the rulers, it did not bring about any revolutionary
change in the administrative and economic life of the country.

K. M. Munshi

The Hindu intellectual classes such as the Kayasthas, the
Khatris, the Pandits of Kashmir, the Amils of Sind and the
Brahmins of Maharashtra contributed substantially to the ranks
of the bureaucracy, thus helping to sustain the administrative
standards. They quickly gained mastery over the language of the
rulers, Persian, in order to qualify for superior positions in the
government. There was also a sizable representation of Hindus
in the armed services, with the Rajputs becoming the swordarm
of the Moghul Empir and the Marathas playing a similar role in
the Deccan.

The Munshi family history reveals that many of its
members had attained great proficiency in Persian. One of
them, Nandanlal, who flourished in the eighteenth century,
became a noted scholar and poet in that language.The Moghul
Emperor was mightily pleased with his literary attainments and
granted him a jagir. His son, Harivallabh, rose in the service of
the Nawab of Broach. Munshi’s own father, Maneklal, served
as Dewan for sometime in the Muslim-governed principality of
Sachin in Saurashtra. Loyalty to the Government, irrespective of
the religious beliefs of the rulers, had become an inviolable
custom in the Munshi family. Maneklal, who served the British
Raj and rose to become a Deputy Collector, did not like his son
attending the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress.

From the days of Munshi’s great grandfather, Karsondas,
there was a marked change in the fortunes of the family.
Thenceforward it became a family of lawyers, with law running
in the veins of its members. Karsondas became a distinguished
lawyer and was for sometime Government pleader in Surat and
Thana. His son, Narbheram, Munshi's grandfather, pursued his
parent’s profession and was highly esteemed for his abilities. A
British judge wrote thus about him: “A very clever and talented
man. Bears a high character amongst the inhabitants of the city”

Early Years

of Broach. Narbheram was then serving as Reader in the
Broach Court.

Munshi’s father, Maneklal, deviated from the hereditary
path, but his elder brother, Parshuram, remained faithful to the
family tradition. Munshi has presented a highly amusing account
of the manner in which his uncle was able to secure the much-
prized sanad of a High Court pleader. Parshuram journeyed to
Bombay and put up in the city with a fellow- Gujarati who
happened to be the Government pleader in the High Court. The
pleader took the applicant to the Chief Justice for interview to
test his knowledge of law.

The Chief Justice asked the pleader in English to question
the candidate on the law of mortgage and what was meant by
the term “equity of redemption”. While Parshuram did not know
English, the Chief Justice did not understand a word of Gujarati.
Far from testing the candidate, the wily pleader addressed him
thus: “Parshuram Munshi, are you married?” It was not a
difficult question to answer! The second question was: “How
many persons were invited on the occasion of your marriage
feast and what were the dishes served?” This was also not a
baffling question. The interview was successful and the candidate
got the coveted sanad. The Chief Justice was told: “The
Munshis suck in law with their mothers’ milk”.

As was the custom of those days, Munshi was married
when he was still a teenager. At the time of his wedding he was
barely thirteen years old, his bride, Atilakshmi, being nine years
of age. When his father, Maneklal, married he was only nine
years old; his mother, Tapibehn, was just six! Atilakshmi grew
up into a beautiful woman and served her husband with the
traditional devotion of a Hindu wife. She was, however, not
educated so that, as Munshi rose to fame and affluence and
widened the area of his activities, he found in her companionship

K. M. Munshi

an intellectual void which deeply grieved him. He was, however,
careful not to wound her feelings. He yearned for a partner in
life who could appreciate the keenness of his mind, understand
and applaud his literary creations, and hold her own in an
intellectual society.

During his rise in Bombay he had met Lilavati who had
by then become a celebrity as an accomplished writer in
Gujarati. They would have made an ideal man and wife but both
were married! When still a girl, she had been married to a
wealthy but elderly gentleman, Lalbhai Seth. Like Munshi, she
too was unhappy. The stars in their courses had, however,
decided that Kanhaiyalal and Lilavati should be united in holy
wedlock. While Atilakshmi died in 1924, Lalbhai left this world
in the following year. With the consent and blessing of his
mother, Tapibehn, Munshi married Lilavati in 1926. The two
opened a new chapter in their lives, inspiring each other to
make new conquests in the vast kingdom of letters.

Munshi, however, found this domestic happiness long after
he had completed his student days and had begun to make his mark
in the legal profession in Bombay. The intervening period was full of
ups and downs in his life. His father was an employee in the
Revenue Department of the Government of Bombay on a small
salary. Without the necessary educational qualifications he could
not expect to make a successful career as an official. In 1 900, he
was posted to Broach as Deputy Collector. Munshi was sent
to the local High School from where he matriculated. It was a great
event in the family. B oth then and long after till national independence,
it was the ambition of most English-educated middle class families
to make their sons members of the elite Indian Civil Service.
Maneklal shared this dream but it came to nothing.

“Kami”, as Munshi was affectionately called, could not
even go to Bombay, acclaimed as the urbs prima in Indis for

Early Years

higher education. Instead he was sent to the Baroda College to
take his degree from there. Baroda was then the capital of a
large princely state, ruled by Sayajirao Gaekwad, an enlightened
man who was determined to make it an ideally-governed
principality. He was a man of vision who never allowed
regional, linguistic or religious considerations to hamper the
attraction of talent in his service. He recruited able men from
different parts of the country so that the Baroda bureaucracy
consisted of Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, South Indians and
Bengalis. Notable among such employees was Aurobindo
Ghosh who later won international renown as a revolutionary,
scholar and saint. Young Munshi came under his spell during his
college days.

Munshi was a voracious reader and studied with deep
interest the European literature of revolt, extolling liberty and
freedom, proclaiming the sanctity of human personality, and
openly preaching rebellion against tyranny and oppression.
Strangely enough, he admired Napoleon, a warrior statesman of
unsurpassed brilliance. Napoleon could not, however, be
regarded as an exemplar of those who believed in popular
government. Munshi’ s admiration for Shivaji, founder of the
Maratha Empire, was well-founded. The great Maratha could
humble and send to its doom the mighty Moghul Empire with
almost no resources of his own. Munshi was also strongly
drawn towards Aurobindo Ghosh whom he regarded as his
beau ideal in his student days and in later years as a luminous
star in the spiritual and philosophical firmament of India.
Aurobindo, who had spent over fourteen years abroad,
returned to India in 1893 and accepted service in the Baroda
State which he served till 1907. Curiously enough, he began his
official career in the Settlement Department and was eventually
transferred to the Baroda College to give lessons in French.
Soon after, he became Professor of English. At the same time,

K. M. Munshi

he helped Maharaja Sayajirao in writing letters, in drafting
speeches and in drawing up specialised documents for
His Highness.

A patriotic and sensitive young man like Munshi could not
remain indifferent to the happenings in the country. After the
brutal suppression of the revolt of 1857, Whitehall and its
subordinates in India had begun to govern the country as if it
had been conquered for the second time. Determined to make
India England’s permanent colony, they rigorously excluded
Indians from taking even a modest share in the government of
their own country. Deliberately ignoring India’s great past, they
maintained that the people of this country were congenitally
incapable of managing their own affairs. Lokmanya Bal
Gangadhar Tilak was not a believer in the policy of prayer and
petition for gaining the national goal, but by no stretch of
imagination could he be called an advocate of a bloody
revolution. And yet he was stigmatised as a seditionist, an
anarchist and a revolutionary. Among the non-revolutionary
patriots of his times, Tilak was undoubtedly the
most persecuted leader. In Bengal, the partition decision
provided the spark for a conflagration that engulfed almost the
entire country.

Lord Curzon, who hatched the plan for disrupting Indian
nationalism in collusion with a cabal of like-minded imperialists,
had gained the conviction that a united Bengal would become
an irresistible power, but divided it would “pull several different
ways”. He held the Indian Vice-royalty from 1899 to 1905 and
wrote within a year of his rule that one of his cherished
ambitions was to send the great national organisation, the
Congress, to its doom. Curzon was undoubtedly one of the
greatest British proconsuls in this country. He was brilliant and
industrious and worked for eleven hours a day. He was,

Early Years

however, an uninhibited imperialist and dismissed Indian political
aspirations as Utopian. His plea that the province of Bengal had
grown unwieldy, thereby impairing the administrative efficiency
in the outlying districts, was not wholly invalid. But this was only
part of the reason and not the whole of it, for the object of
administrative efficiency could have been gained by separating
the non-Bengali areas from that province. The real intention was
to stem the tide of nationalism. The bureaucracy apprehended
danger to the durability of the Raj from the two most politically
advanced groups, the Marathi-speaking Brahmins in the Deccan
and the Bengali intellectual classes, the bhadralok. The partition
of Bengal was clearly intended to drive a wedge between the
Hindu and Muslim communities there. By making a liberal use
of the immense mass of patronage at their command the
Viceroy and his assistants succeeded in drawing the Muslim
landed and educated classes into the government camp.
Whitehall was deliberately kept in the dark about the real object
of the project. “Even the Secretary of State for India”, writes
R.RCronin, “was not privy to the innermost thoughts of the
Viceroy and his key officials”.*

The new province of East Bengal and Assam came into
existence in October 1905, unleashing a convulsive movement
not only in the Bengali-speaking areas but in most parts of the
country. The Swadeshi movement aimed at buying only India-
made goods, received a tremendous fillip. Great political
leaders unanimously condemned the Government’s move to
sabotage Indian nationalism. While the veteran patriot Dadabhai
Naoroji, characterised the partition as a “blunder”, Gopal

* British Policy and Administration in Bengal, 1905-1912: Partition
and the New Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam by Richard Paul
Cronin, Firma KLM Private Ltd., 1977, p. 1.

2-473 M. of I&B/ND/8 1 .

K. M. Munshi

Krishna Gokhale, that exemplar of moderation and mildness,
declared with unaccustomed heat that the Government’s action
showed “its utter contempt for public opinion, its arrogant
pretensions to superior wisdom, its reckless disregard of the
most cherished feelings of the people”. There was countrywide
determination to unsettle what was claimed to be a settled fact.
The annulment of the partition in 1911 marked the triumph of
Indian nationalism, making the event even more significant than
the abortive uprising of 1857. It was impossible for young
nationalists like Munshi not to be deeply stirred by such epoch-
making developments.

Munshi was, however, not directly drawn into the vortex
of the anti-partition movement because he was in a princely
state at the time where agitation against the British Raj were not
encouraged. This was so in all the protected principalities in the
country. When he was still studying for junior B.A. in 1905,
Munshi took a first-class in the first year LL.B. examination,
winning the Ambalal Sakerlal prize. He passed the B.A. degree
examination in the following year, scoring 6o per cent marks in
English, which got him the Elliot Memorial prize. Four years
later, in 1910, he qualified for the legal profession by passing the
final LL.B. examination. He decided to settle down in Bombay
to make his fortune in that great metropolis. It would be
appropriate to discuss in the next chapter the political situation
in the country before proceeding to trace Munshi ’s career
as a lawyer.

State of the Country

MUNSHI WAS ENDOWED with extraordinary intelligence
and imagination, but in politics he was essentially the
product of his times. He shared the widely prevalent
contemporary feeling that India’s freedom from foreign rule
should be sought by a strict adherence to the doctrine of
gradualness. His knowledge of history convinced him about the
positive aspects of the British Raj. After the collapse of the
Moghul and the Maratha Empires, the country had sunk into
unprecedented disorder and violence. The Pindari and thagi
depredations had reduced large parts of the country into
chronic centres of insecurity, plunging millions of people into
indescribable misery. The new rulers thoroughly destroyed the
lawless hordes, brought the entire sub-continent within the
frame of a government whose edicts could be challenged by
none with impunity. The Raj also established a reign of law,
which provided the foundation for the new system of government.

The concept of personal liberty, enshrined in the writ of
habeas corpus, and the doctrine that no person could be
deprived of his liberty without the due process of the law were
something new to ancient Indian jurisprudence. Besides giving
the country a firm, clean and efficient government, the new
rulers encouraged the study of India’s civilization and placed
before the world the fruits of their research and scholarship.
Indologists such as Nathaniel Halhed, Charles Wilkins, James
Prinsep, Henry Colebrooke, H.H.Wilson and William Jones

K. M. Munshi

worked tirelessly in unearthing the almost forgotten literary and
philosophical treasures of the land, making them readily
accessible to the scholar and the common man alike. Acclaimed
as a prodigy of learning and as a linguistic genius, Sir William
Jones attained an astonishing mastery over India’s classical
language, Sanskrit, which, in his view, was of “wonderful
structure — more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin,
and more exquisitely refined than either”.

The introduction of quick means of transport and
communication shortened distances in the sub-continent,
contributing to an unprecedented mobility of the population. A
Perceptive observer declared that the railways welded India
into a nation. Security of travel and the speed at which
destinations could be reached helped Indians, and more
especially the English-educated class, to come closer together
and to discuss their common problems. English, which had
opened for them the doors of Western learning and had become
a powerful instrument for stimulating their national aspirations,
became their lingua franca. “The introduction of English
education”, wrote the veteran leader, Dadabhai Naoroji, “with
its great, noble, elevating and civilizing literature and advanced
science, will for ever remain a monument of good work done
in India and a claim to gratitude upon the Indian people”.
Indeed, it was the new learning, disseminated through this
foreign medium, which created in India a new class imbued with
social purposes, unusual to Hindu thought.

The value of British rule was a strong disincentive for
Indian politics to become radical from its inception. A much
stronger reason was the profound faith in the bona fides of
Whitehall. The uprising of 1857 carried both a lesson and a
warning. Long before this convulsive event, Raja Ram Mohan
Roy (1774-1833) had admonished his countrymen against

State of the Country

haste. He said: “When we have to depend by the very
conditions of our existence on all things and all beings in nature,
is not this fiery love of national independence a chimera? India
requires many more years of British domination”. Long after
him, this belief was shared by most politicians till the advent of
Mahatma Gandhi to the country’s supreme leadership.

It is not without significance that the initiative for founding
the Indian National Congress in 1885 came from a former
British civil servant, Allan Octavian Hume. On one issue, Indian
politicians were not prepared for any compromise. They
wanted parliamentary institutions of the Westminster type for
their country. The new system of education had thoroughly
indoctrinated them with the British ideas and ideals of government.
Even before the Congress met for its first session in 1885, the
prospectus issued by it declared: “Indirectly this Conference will
form the germ of a Native Parliament”. A resolution at the
first session of the Congress maintained that “a considerable
portion of elected members” was necessary both for the Central
and Provincial Legislative Councils. At its second session in
1886, it demanded that elected members' should constitute at
least one-half of all the Councils. It sometimes drew' up its own
schemes for constitutional progress. Its Home Rule Scheme of
1889, besides providing for the liberalisation of Indian
representation in the legislatures, envisaged adult suffrage on the
basis of certain qualifications. In 1895, a regular Constitution
Bill was framed incorporating all the essential features of a
democratic government. It was believed to have been drawn up
under the inspiration of Tilak.

The Congress demand for political concessions was thus
insistent and forthright but till the coming of Gandhi, it had no
counterpart in action. Congressmen of the earlier generation
were no political evangelists, determined to pursue their goal at

K. M. Munshi

all costs. They were constitutionalists to the core, their attitude
towards the Raj being a mixture of admiration and awe. Many
of them believed that Britain’s dominion over their motherland
was a divinely-inspired arrangement. Mahatma Gandhi, who
later blossomed forth into Britain’s most formidable rebel, held
strikingly similar views at the time on the value of British
connection with India. The Mahatma, who went to South Africa
in 1893 and returned to India only in January 1915, was as
moderate in his political convictions as his exemplar, Gokhale.
Writing in Indian Opinion on June I, 1907, Gandhi strongly
criticized Lala Lajpat Rai for demanding the abolition of British
rule. He considered Indo-British connection indispensable
because public spirit was “not likely to grow among us without
Western education and contacts with the West”. Indians must
deserve before they desired national freedom. Besides, the
British gave protection to this country. He declared candidly
that it was not “desirable that British rule in India
should disappear”.*

Such loyalty, perhaps rare in the history of any dependent
people, evoked no favourable response. The Morley-Minto
Reforms, leading to the framing of the Indian Councils Act of
1909, was acclaimed as marking a break with the past. There
is indeed no foundation for any such claim. The statute merely
broadened the representation authorised by the Council Act of
1892. Except for offering better opportunities for debate, the
reformed legislatures did not change their basic character as
mere darbars. Nomination remained the dominant factor in the
selection of members who were divided into three different
categories, namely, nominated official members, nominated non¬
official members and elected members. The dismptive system of

*The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume VII, Publications
Division, Government of India, pp. 6,7.

State of the Country

representation by communities was introduced in response to
the demand by Muslim vested interests so that there was no
uniformity in the methods and principles of voting.

The First World War, which broke out in Europe in August
1914, shattered the smug British belief that in
a changing world the British empire was the only stable thing. It
was a global conflict which, besides destroying lives and limbs,
smashed the status quo to smithereens. The war gave a
tremendous impetus to Munshi ’s patriotic fervour. He believed
with many of his forward-looking countrymen that Britain’s
necessity was India’s opportunity. His interest in politics began in
1903 when he was in the first year of his college career. The
Congress session of that year was presided over by Surendranath
Banerjee who was acclaimed as the Indian Demosthenes of his
times. Six years later in 1909 Munshi attended the Surat
Congress, enthusiastically serving as a volunteer in the camp of
the so-called extremists. In 1915, by which time he had started
practice on the Original Side of the Bombay High Court,
Mahatma Gandhi returned to India. Some years earlier, H.S.L.
Polak, the Mahatma’s great friend in South Africa, had visited
India and spent some hours with Munshi in his home town of
Broach on his way to Bombay. Discussing the relative merits of
the Indian leaders, Polak told him: “Not one of them is fit to hold
a candle to Mi*. Gandhi”. Munshi was mightily impressed with the
Mahatma’s achievements in South Africa but reserved his
judgment on the newcomer’s stature.

Munshi was fascinated by Mrs. Annie Besant’s dynamism
and enthusiasm for Indian independence. Dr. Besant was
undoubtedly the most remarkable British woman. She came to
India in 1 893 and made it her home sharing in full measure the
joys and sorrows and the triumphs and humiliations of its
people. She was a mettlesome lady and made no bones about

K. M. Munshi

advocating violence to gain national ends. “Violence”, she said,
“is the recognised way in England of gaining political reforms”.*
Although she moderated her views in later years, she remained
a fiery advocate of India’s liberation from British rule. She
started the Home Rule League on September 25, 1915 and
made it a countrywide organisation by enlisting influential
support and through tireless press and platform propaganda.
She never intended that her League should become a rival of
the Congress.

Lokmanya Tilak, who was fed up with the politics of
Congress moderates whose platform oratory had absolutely no
counterpart in action, liked Dr. Besant’s move and started his
own Home Rule League at Poona in April 1916 with Joseph
Baptista as President and N.C.Kelkar as Secretary. He explained
the need for such a body since the Congress had become “too
unwieldy to be easily moved to prepare a scheme for self-
government and actively work for its political success”. At the
same time, he made it clear that the League’s movement was not
an exclusive one. Very soon the Lokmanya (respected by the
people) became the hero of the masses, causing convulsions in
the bureaucratic ranks.

A branch of Dr. Besant’s All-India Home Rule League was
opened in Bombay with M. A. Jinnah, then and for many years
later the darling of the Indian elite, as President and M.R.
Jayakar, an eminent jurist and scholar, as Vice-President. Munshi,
along with a number of other intellectuals, joined the League and
worked tirelessly to carry its message in the city and to many
parts of Gujarat. Munshi was most active and took a leading part

* Struggle For Freedom:The History and Culture of the Indian People,
Volume XI, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969, p. 233.

General Editor: R. C. Majumdar.

State of the Country

in preparing the necessary literature about the movement for wide
dissemination. Inspired by Dr. Besant’s example, he started a
weekly paper Young India and edited it along with Jamnadas
Dwarkadas. Indulal Yagnik started the monthly Navajivan in
Gujarati. Neither in the Bombay province nor elsewhere in the
country did the League intend to supplant the Congress, but it
certainly strove to galvanize the national organisation to purposeful
activity. As Munshi has written: “A new spirit had come over the
public life of the Province”.

The League's attitude towards the British policy on Indian
reforms was pragmatic and rested on the principle of responsive
cooperation. The Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu’s
famous declaration of August 1917 was at first joyfully
welcomed, acclaiming it as a Magna Carta for India.
According to the declaration, the policy of the Government was
“that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of
the administration and the gradual development of self-
governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation
of responsible government in India as an integral part of the
British Empire”. The declaration added significantly that the
Government would be the sole judge of the time and measure
of each advance which could only be by “successive stages”
before the blessed goal could be reached. Progress, no matter
how slow, could be made only on the basis of unstinted
cooperation by the Indian people.

It was a sonorous but unsubstantial declaration. The fact
that it was drafted by Lord Curzon, the arch enemy of Indian
freedom, proved its emptiness. The Montagu Chelmsford
Reforms, based on that declaration, could not by any stretch of
imagination be interpreted as a genuine essay in responsible
government. And yet they were extravagantly praised and
compared with the famous Durham Report on Canada. The

K. M. Munshi

Durham scheme of 1839 was not a full fledged Dominion
Constitution for Canada, but it undoubtedly furnished
a habitable posting house towards freedom. No such claim
could be honestly made on behalf of the Montford Report
which, presumably influenced by the well-known publicist and
imperial handyman, Lionel Curtis, provided for a novel and
thoroughly unworkable system of dyarchy.

Munshi greatly liked his League work but it did not last
long. Some of its members, including Jinnah, Jamnadas
Dwarkadas and Umar Sobhani, wanted to enroll Mahatma
Gandhi as a member. This was not liked by others such as
Jayakar. At a meeting to which Gandhi was invited, Jayakar
explained that the Mahatma was “an all India man” and a
“world figure” while the League was a relatively small
organisation. It was necessary to keep its policies, methods and
activities “variable”, to suit the Government’s attitude to the
Indian demand. Such resilience was likely to conflict with
Gandhi’s “gospel of love and peace”. The Mahatma produced
his own arguments and succeeded in securing admission.*

Jayakar ’s apprehension that the Mahatma would gain
absolute control over the organisation and make his own “fads”
prevail came true. Munshi, who had stubbornly resisted being
swept off his feet by the “saintly whirlwind”, noted that with
the advent of the Mahatma the League changed its ideas and
ideals completely. He wrote: “Gandhiji was elected President
of the All-India Home Rule League and some of my friends
who thought they were king-makers, found to their surprise that
he was no king log. No resolution could be adopted unless it
was drafted by him. We had no chance to have votes taken;

*The Story of My Life (1873-1922) by M. R. Jayakar, Volume I, Asia,
1958, pp . 317-18.

State of the Country

a few minutes’ discussion reduced every one to passive
acquiescence. And in a short time we found that his popularity
was growing so immense that far from our having obliged him
by installing him in that place, it was he who obliged us by
remaining with us”.

Gandhi changed the name of the All-India Home Rule
League and called it Swarajya Sabha. He also drastically
amended the aims and objects of the League. The Swarajya
Sabha would strive to “secure complete swaraj for India
according to the wishes of the Indian people” and would carry
on a “continuous propaganda” to organise them in order to
attain this goal by “peaceful and effective action”. Many
influential members refused to endorse these changes on the
ground that the new constitution of the organisation “deliberately”
omitted any reference to British connection and that it made
“unconstitutional and illegal activities” possible provided they
were “peaceful and effective”. They, therefore, decided to leave
the League. Among those who resigned were Jinnah, Jayakar,
Munshi, H.V. Divatia, Jamnadas Dwarkadas, Nagindas T.
Master, Jamnadas M. Mehta, Mangaldas M. Pakvasa,
Gulabchand Devchand and Hiralal Nanavaty.*

Defending himself in the press, the Mahatma maintained
that swaraj was the country’s major goal and that it did not
matter whether it was attained with or without the British
connection. “I personally hate”, he wrote, “unconstitutionalism
and illegalities, but I refuse to make a fetish of these as I refuse
to make a fetish of the British connection”. He appealed to the

*The above list of names has been taken from Jayakar’s The Story
of My Life, Volume 1, p. 405 and Munshi’s I Follow the Mahatma.
While the former gives six names, the latter mentions nine.

Follow the Mahatma by K. M. Munshi, Allied Publishers, 1940, p. 6.

K. M. Munshi

seceding members to reconsider their decision but they did not.
Munshi was not yet prepared to follow the Mahatma. He wrote:
“Gandhiji was a phenomenon which compelled admiration, but
to me he remained incomprehensible”. He felt that active legal
practice would be far more rewarding than the pursuit of
Congress or League politics.

The Lawyer

MUNSHI WENT TO BOMBAY on July 22, 1910, to
receive his law degree and to make his career there. He
had visited the city several times before and knew that it could
become the most hospitable home for the successful but pitiless
to those that failed. He had no resources of his own to fall back
upon nor did he have rich cousins to maintain him during the
period of his enforced idleness. The spectacle presented by the
Bombay Bar was least reassuring. Since its inception, it had the
tradition of being one of the strongest in India. It abounded in
lawyers of gigantic stature. In the earlier generations there were
such eminent practitioners as Vasudev Jagganath Kirtikar,
maternal grandfather of M.R. Jayakar, Badruddin Tyabji,
Phirozeshah Mehta, Vishwanath Narayan Mandalik. Shantaram
Narayan and K. T. Telang. European barristers, for whom there
was a marked preference in those days, were also strongly
represented at the Bombay Bar.

In Munshi’s own time, the Bar looked like a
heavily-guarded fortress. Men of great legal acumen, ability and
experience manned its battlements, making it nearly impossible
for outsiders to storm them with success. There was In-verarity,
with his phenomenal memory and remarkable ability both as a
lawyer and as an advocate. He was, however, in the evening of
his life at that time. Sir Jamshedji Kanga, who rose to become
the Advocate-General, was an able lawyer with an equally

K. M. Munshi

astounding memory. Strongman, who also served as Advocate-
General, was another giant at the Bar and was for some years
Munshi’s bete noire. He was an arrogant man who rarely forgot
that he belonged to the ruling class. He and M. A. Jinnah could
never brook each other’s presence. Impeccable in his
professional etiquette, Jinnah was justly famous as an advocate
but he was poor as a lawyer.

Sir Chimanlal Setalvad was, yet another stalwart at the
Bombay Bar. He was-industrious and methodical and had a
thorough knowledge of legal principles. In his arguments he
produced no epigrams or recalled witty sayings and displayed
a chilly scorn for all rhetoric. He offered no entertainment but
appealed to the mind and the intellect. There was M. R.
Jayakar, whose sound knowledge of Hindu Law, with particular
reference to the law of adoption, got him large practice.
Bhulabhai Desai, in whose chambers Munshi worked for some
years, was endowed with many qualities which brought him the
most glittering prizes in the legal profession. His mastery over
the English language and his oratory, combined with his sound
knowledge of law, ensured that he became' a luminous star at
the Bombay Bar. Munshi’s other and relatively younger
contemporaries like Motiial Setalvad, Sir Harilal Kania, N. H.
Bhagwati, C. K. Daphtary, M. R Amin and M. V. Desai,
eventually rose to great positions after spells of trial and
tribulation at the Bar.

Apart from the fact that a tiny close corporation of talent,
experience and influence controlled the great prizes of the
profession, the dual system was a further deterrent to young
lawyers’ achieving early fame and affluence. Among the High
Courts in India, only those of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras had
original jurisdiction, the rest being purely appellate Courts. For
some time only Barristers had audience on the Original Side of

The Lawyer

the Calcutta and Bombay High Courts. In Bombay, a stiff
Advocate’s Examination was instituted in later years to entitle the
holders of the LL.B. degree to practise on the Original Side.
There was yet another hurdle. In the High Courts of Bombay and
Calcutta, Counsel could get briefs on the Original Side only when
instructed by a solicitor. There was persistent demand for doing
away with the system so that advocates could take work direct
from clients. Its defenders, however, argued that it represented a
division of labour and resulted in a more efficient and speedy
presentation and trial of cases before the Court. Whatever may
be the rights and wrongs of the dual system, those lawyers who
could not succeed in winning the confidence of the solicitors,
were apt to be left high and dry, notwithstanding their great legal
abilities. The system has since been done away with.

The prospects of a successful legal career were thus none
too bright for Munshi. In addition, he lacked for sometime the
self-confidence and the sophistication that comes naturally to a
member of the urban elite but is denied to many hailing from
mofussil backwaters. For a lawyer the period of waiting is both
a daunting and painful experience. It is most depressing to go
day after day to court and sit there doing almost no court work.
Munshi, who was called to the Bar two years after
M. C. Setalvad had joined, saw with his own eyes how the
latter, who was also working in Bhulabhai Desai’s chambers,
was struggling to secure some rewarding practice. This was the
plight of a man who was the son of a distinguished and an
outstandingly successful lawyer. To give another example, M.
C. Chagla, who rose to become the Chief Justice of the
Bombay High Court, has recorded that he had very little work
at the Bar for the first seven or eight years.

From the time he set his foot in Bombay, Munshi decided
to make every effort to succeed as a lawyer. He called on

K. M. Munshi

Manchhashanker, brother of Jamietram of the well-known firm
of attorneys, Messrs. Matubhai Jamietram & Madan. When he
was sitting with the elder man, Munshi had a fleeting glimpse of
his future legal exemplar, Bhulabhai Desai. Even as a young
man, Desai commanded a flourishing practice after giving up the
profession of teaching at Ahmedabad. Fortunately for Munshi,
Jamietram, an influential, astute and strong-minded attorney,
became interested in his career. He could see that the young
man had great literary talent and many other qualities that would
ensure his success at the Bar. In February 1913, Munshi
appeared for the difficult Advocate’s examination and, despite
his diffidence about his performance, was declared successful in
the following month. He was happy that he could now try to win
a distinguished place at the Bar like Sir Chimanlal Setalvad and
Sir Jamshedji Kanga. In June, Bhulabhai Desai took him as his
junior after admonishing him with these words: “Lowndes told
me what I am telling you. If you will be useful to me, I will
likewise be useful to you”. Sir George Lowndes, who practised
in Bombay for a long time, later became a member of the Privy
Council Bench. Munshi soon proved that he was a match for
Bhulabhai Desai and the relations between the two developed
into a lifelong friendship.

Jamietram and his nephew Narmadashankar of another
firm of solicitors began to send small briefs to Munshi so that his
fee book for the year 1913 showed a gross receipt of Rs. 1 150,
not a negligible earning by a beginner. Munshi got his first
important brief in' July of that year. He appeared before Chief
Justice Scott in an appeal from the Thana Court near Bombay.
Ranged against him was no less a person than the formidable Sir
Thomas Strongman whose intimidating methods had almost
terrorised the junior Bar. Munshi persevered with his argument
despite frequent interruptions by the Advocate-General. Since he

The Lawyer

was conducting his first case, Munshi fumbled and mis-stated a
fact or two, but the presiding Judge was kind and sympathetic.

Despite his inexperience and the bullying tactics of
Strongman, Munshi had done remarkably well and had made a
good impression on the Chief Justice. A few days later, Sir
Jamshedji Kanga met the young lawyer and told him that the
Chief justice was pleased with his performance. “He remembered
you”, said Sir Jamshedji, “when he was making appointments of
Law Professors, but you are so much of a junior”. Munshi was
thrilled. Success did not, however, come to him so easily. At the
beginning, he had to swallow the bitter drench of defeat on a
few rare occasions. His friends at Surat and Broach were keen
on helping him with briefs. One such case related to an election
dispute in the Rander Municipality. Munshi, who was travelling
to appear in the Surat District Court, was taken aback when he
found Strongman in another compartment of the train. The
young lawyer argued for full four hours on behalf of his client
but, after Strongman’s half an hour’s reply, his elaborately
constructed case fell like a pack of cards. For all his labour, he
received a packet of Surat sweets ! To his great mortification,
he had to pay from his own pocket for his return journey.

In a little over a decade, Munshi succeeded in inspiring
confidence among the solicitors and his clients that he was a
dependable junior. It was indeed a period of intensive
preparation. He collected a sizable number of pleadings drafted
by such competent and experienced counsel as Inverarity,
Lowndes and Bhulabhai Desai and made their style and
technique his own. He assiduously cultivated the habit of using
in his own pleadings striking phrases and dicta found in classical
law books and weighty judgments. He studied the Privy Council
judgments in Indian appeals and made careful notes on them.
By such diligence, he succeeded in gaining a remarkable grasp

K. M. Munshi

over important legal principles. He also trained himself rigorously
in the art of addressing the law courts. His style on such
occasions was entirely different from the one used by him in his
public speeches. He was gifted with a powerful intellect and a
profoundly judicious mind, both of which received a tremendous
impetus from his disciplined study for over a decade.

Munshi was always pleasant, reasonable and considerate.
He had made a strict rule of his life never to be rude or to lose
his temper. Persuasion was the greatest asset in his arguments.
As an advocate, he had a high sense of vocation and gave his
unqualified allegiance to the ideals of justice. Reason and logic,
reinforced by persuasion, should, according to him, be the
hallmark of one’s advocacy and not aggressive postures which
were unworthy of the noble calling of the lawyer. He shared the
belief that the gift of persuasion was indeed the advocate’s pearl
of great price. This is the reason why his arguments were
distinguished for their sweet reasonableness. He also attained a
high degree of expertness in the art of cross-examination. In
many a cause celebre, his masterly use of this technique saved
the situation for his clients, as we shall see presently. He was
undoubtedly the most versatile member of the Bombay Bar.

The development of Munshi after one decade of his
enrolment as a lawyer was so rapid that by the nineteen-thirties
there was no branch of law which he had not studied in depth
and used his specialised knowledge for the benefit of his clients.
He made a penetrating study of ancient Hindu sacred texts to
attain mastery in Hindu Law. Often he enlisted the co-operation
of learned shastris to interpret for him the Sanskrit texts so that
he could argue authoritatively on the legal points at issue.
Munshi, who practised law for over forty years, appeared in a
large number of cases involving the most varied points of law.
Although it is impossible to do justice to his skill as an advocate

The Lawyer

and soundness as a lawyer in a few pages, some instances of
his resourcefulness and versatility may be given here. No
chronological order is observed while recalling the cases in
which he appeared, the criterion being their importance from the
legal point of view.

Pushpa, daughter of rich parents in Bombay, was
attracted to a boy of her caste when she was still of a tender
age. One day she ran away from her parental home and, after
going through some form of marriage with the young fellow in
the city’s working class areas, went with him to Poona to stay
there. Her orthodox parents were deeply distressed over the
episode. On her returning home, she realised that she had made
a mistake. Her parents did not want to coerce her into
separating herself from the young man. He was called to their
residence and was told that a regular marriage befitting their
position would be celebrated if he could persuade the girl to be
his wife. Pushpa flatly refused to have anything to do with him
whereupon he filed a suit in the High Court of Bombay for a
declaration that the girl was his legally wedded wife.

Munshi was briefed to appear on behalf of the girl. His
was a delicate undertaking. The episode had aroused much
public interest. It was asked what was wrong if a commoner
aspired for and gained the hand of a rich man’s daughter, The
life of Munshi, the lawyer, was far from being prosaic. Besides,
he had created enduring literature in Gujarati on romantic
themes. Bearing these facts in mind, Munshi made it clear to the
parents that he would take up the case only if he was convinced
that the girl was determined not to go to the young man and was
willing to repudiate the so-called marriage. He agreed to
proceed when he saw that there was a complete change in her
attitude towards the young man.

3-473 m. ofl&B /ND/81.

K. M. Munshi

The issue that needed clarification was whether the boy
and girl had gone through the marriage ceremony strictly
according to the prescriptions of Hindu Law. On a close
scrutiny of the photographs of the marriage ceremony, Munshi
became certain that some of its essential features could not be
seen in them. He used all his resourcefulness in creating a
situation for the plaintiff which forced him to admit that some of
the most vital rites had not been performed during the alleged
marriage. In a deliberately long drawn out cross-examination,
Munshi asked him whether the sacred fire was burning before
the couple throughout the marriage ceremony on a small
specially prepared mud platform. He was also asked whether
a brass tumbler with a coconut placed on it, another
indispensable item of the ceremony, had been used. The young
man confidently replied that all the necessary prescriptions had
been observed with great care. Thereupon he was asked to
show where the fire and the tumbler with the coconut called
Varuna figured in the photographs. Both were conspicuous by
their absence. The conclusion was that there could be no
marriage if there was no prescribed fire to sanctify it. The
disappointed fellow shouted at Munshi: “You have converted
wife into a sister”.

The question whether what is known as the anuloma or
inter-caste marriage is permitted by Hindu Law was considered
in the case of Bai Gulab, the offspring of a Vaisya father and a
Shudra mother. The girl, who was neglected by her father, was
taken by a Bhatia woman under her care and was later married
to a Vaisya watch-maker. After staying with him for a week, Bai
Gulab left her husband refusing to return to him. The man went
to the court claiming conjugal rights. While Bhulabhai Desai
appeared for him, Munshi represented the woman. Munshi,
who had made a deep study of Mitakshara, Mayukha and the
Dharmashastras, contended that Bai Gulab was a Shudra

The Lawyer

since she was bom to a Shudra woman. Since her marriage
with a Vaisya was anuloma, it was interdicted by the Shastras.
His plea was, however, unacceptable to the trial judge. The
issue was further thrashed out in the Appeal Court which was
presided over by Chief Justice McLeod and Sir Lallubhai Shah,
a profound scholar. For two days the counsel and Sir Lallubhai
were engaged in unravelling the tangled skein of the ancient
texts. Eventually the Division Bench held that anuloma
marriages were not prohibited by Hindu Law. In the Appellate
Court Munshi was opposed by Jinnah.

A nayakin or public woman called Nagubai claime that
she was the avaruddha stree of a deceased rich man and filed
a suit for maintenance against the widow and children of the
dead man. Munshi appeared on behalf of the defendants. He
maintained that the deceased had relations with other women
also and that the defendants did not know whether the plaintiff
was a permanent or a temporary concubine. On the trial judge
negativing this contention, the suit was taken to the Appellate
Court consisting of Sir Lallu bhai, then the acting Chief Justice,
and Justice Crump. Munshi conceded that the Shastras did
recognise the right of an avaruddha stree to be regarded as a
married woman and become entitled to maintenance. He,
however, held that a kept woman could claim such a status only
if she had been accepted by the deceased’s family. Nagubai, he
contended, did not fulfil this essential requirement. The Appellate
Court endorsed this stand and reversed the judgement of the
trial Court. When the case went up to the Privy Council, Lord
Darling favoured a secular and not a scriptural view of the
matter and set aside the decision of the Appellate Court. This
and the anuloma case established Munshi ’s reputation as a
keen student of Hindu law.

K. M. Munshi

Another complicated question, involving the interpretation
of Hindu law, arose over the division of the property of Raja
Bahadur Shivlal Motilal, a leading businessman and multi¬
millionaire of Hyderabad (Deccan). The Raja died, leaving
behind his son, Bansilal, and many grandsons. In 1922 the
dispute between Bansilal and his two elder sons was taken to
the Bombay High Court for hearing before Justice Pratt. The
case hinged on the question whether Hindu father was entitled
to separate only one of his sons without ending the joint status
between himself and the rest of his sons. While Jinnah and
Bhulabhai Desai appeared for the plaintiffs, the two sons of
Bansilal, he was defended by Jamshedji Kanga, assisted by
Munshi and Harilal Kania. Professor Gharpure, an authority on
Dharmashastras, was helping the counsel for the plaintiffs with
the interpretation of the ancient texts.

Munshi felt a similar need for making a deep study of the
Shastras to ascertain the rights and obligations of a father in
relation to property under Hindu Law. He got hold of an
eminent scholar and, with his assistance, gained complete
mastery over the issues involved. Munshi’s turn came after
Jinnah and Kanga finished their addresses. With complete self-
assurance, he went on citing one authority after another from the
old texts upholding the rights of a father. The fact that he could
do so after studying the subject with the aid of a traditional
scholar was kept a secret. His solicitor was delighted because
Munshi’s arguments were far more wide ranging than the points
covered in the brief. While Kanga congratulated him, Bhulabhai
warmly shook his pupil by the hand. Thenceforward a steady
stream of briefs began to pour into Munshi’s chamber from an
increasing number of solicitors’ firms. Since the suit was settled,
it did not find a place in the Law Reports.

The Lawyer

In 1936, Munshi found himself called upon to delve deep
into the Jaina canon in order to do justice to his clients in a case
involving the flagstaff of the famous Kesariyaji temple in the
Udaipur State of Rajasthan. In the early decades of the
nineteenth century the flagstaff of this temple had fallen. A new
one was erected in its place by the Svetambars, members of
the white-clad” sect, who were’ then in power. That also came
down about a century later by which time the Digambaras
(“space-clad” or naked) had gained ascendancy in the State.
The question arose as to which of the two sects was entitled to
put up a new flagstaff. It appointed a Committee to ascertain
the standpoints of the feuding sects on the issue. M.C. Setalvad
appeared for the Digambaras while their opponents were
represented by Munshi.

The question that needed to be settled was which of the
two sects had built the temple of Kesariyaji. Munshi’s
arguments is before the Committee were marked by the depth
of his legal and historical knowledge. Muni Jinvijayji, who was
instructing Motilal Setalvad, declared that Munshi’s interpretation
of the Jaina canon was masterly. The Muni, who was a famous
scholar, later became the Director of the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan. Munshi, who had a strong historical sense, was drawn
towards the ancient State of Udaipur because it was from there
that the great warrior ruler, Rana Pratap, had hurled defiance at
the Moghul imperialists. The Committee’s findings about the
disputed temple flagstaff did not see the light of day till 1947
when Munshi was invited by the ruler of the State to become
his honorary constitutional adviser.

The variety of cases handled by Munshi provides a true
index to the versatility of his talent. In the nineteen forties it
became necessary for him to make a deeper study of the
Bhagvad Gita and the philosophy of monotheism in order to

K. M. Munshi

defend the tenets of the well-known sect of Swami Narayan in
Gujarat. A rival organisation, led by a capable dissident, had
been set up in order to preach religious doctrines that were
considered a heresy by the Acharya of the Swami Narayan
sect. The protestants asserted that they were the true
representatives of the faith and demanded that they should be
allowed free access to the various temples belonging to the sect.
Their leader had himself built a number of shrines and had
acquired considerable influence in some parts of rural Gujarat
over a period of half a century.

The Acharya filed a suit in the Court at Borsad, a small
town in Gujarat, against the protestants for an injunction to
restrain them from going into the temples in his diocese and for
a declaration that they were not the true followers of Swami
Narayan. The Acharya gave his case to Munshi. At first the
case attracted little attention partly because it was heard in a
relatively obscure place, but it soon acquired considerable
importance and gained wide public attention since profound
issues of religious belief were involved. By explaining the true
implications of monotheism, Munslii proved that the doctrines of
the Swami Narayan sect were derived from this philosophy. He
called attention to the creed of the rival sect and maintained that
it was destructive of the founder's doctrine. J.M.Shelat, who
was briefed as Munshi's junior in this case and who collaborated
with him in a number of other cases, was of the opinion that his
senior's address in the Borsad Court was "one of his most
brilliant performances"*. Munshi won the Swami Narayan case.
Earlier, he had scored a similar resounding legal victory on
behalf of the Mullaji Saheb of the Dawoodi Borah community.

*For my material on Munshi’s role as a lawyer, I have drawn heavily upon
Justice J. M. Shelat’s writings in Munshi: His Art, and Works vol.
I, pp. 127-228 and Munshi at Seventy-five pp. 45-71.

The Lawyer

Here he was called upon to trace the history of the Islamic
doctrine, as it is understood by the Borah community, of which
the Mulla Saheb is the head.

Munshi’s legal work became more and more diversified
as his reputation as an able lawyer increased. In the famous
Chand Chhap Kesari case, the odds were heavily against him.
Sir Thomas Strongman and Bhulabhai Desai, who led him, felt
that their client’s case was hopeless. But neither Munshi nor
Jamietram, the attorney who was deeply interested in the suit,
shared their pessimism. An old window was carrying on an
extensive business in saffron. She had received a large
consignment of this commodity from Spain and directed her
muccadam to take its delivery. Towards this end, she signed
certain papers produced by him. Being illiterate, she did not
know what the document was really about. On being asked to
deliver the imported saffron to the firm, the man replied that the
consignment had been pledged with him to secure the
repayment of Rs. 20,000 advanced by him to the firm.

In the absence of Bhulabhai Desai, his senior, Munshi
argued the case on behalf of the widow before Justice Crump
of the Bombay High Court. The muccadam produced his
books of account to prove that the transaction was genuine.
A sound knowledge of book-keeping was necessary to verify
this claim. Munshi carefully scrutinized the various entries in
the books and after two or three days of gruelling work
discovered that they had been cooked up in order to show a
balance of Rs. 20,000. The muccadam’s case was lost, but it
was upheld in the Appellate Court. Thereupon the widow went
to the Privy Council where her case was argued by Sir George
Lowndes. The highest judicial authority upheld the view taken
by the trial judge and the decree of the Appellate Court was
reversed. The widow’s victory was indeed a triumph for
Munshi’s forensic abilities.

K. M. Munshi

Munshi proved equally resourceful in opposing the
Demonetisation Ordinance of the Government of India,
prohibiting the cashing of 1 000-rupee currency notes after a
certain specified date. He had discussions with some of the
leading financiers and had made a thorough study of the history
of promissory notes issued by the Bank of England. He came
to the conclusion that the Ordinance could not exonerate the
Reserve Bank of India from its I.O.U. obligation to the
promiser. He accordingly filed a mandamus petition which
was heard by Justice Kania. On getting an adverse verdict,
he went to the Appellate Court consisting of Chief Justice
Sir Leonard Stone and Justice Lokur. He gave such an
outstanding performance before them that the Chief Justice
described his arguments as “brilliant and exhaustive”. The
petition, however, failed.

Munshi became an expert in the income-tax law and
developed an extensive practice in this line. He w&s much
sought after by wealthy income tax-payers so that he had to go
up and down the country frequently to appear before the
Income Tax Tribunals. He appeared in some of the leading
income-tax cases before the High Courts and the Supreme
Court till he gave up legal practice. He also received a large
number of cases concerning litigation over the
teji mandi transactions. Through diligence and persistence, he
succeeded in correcting the strongly held view that these
transactions were no better than wagering contracts. Thus in
commercial matters also he became a leading practitioner. As
his reputation as a sound lawyer increased, a steady stream of
briefs flowed into his chamber for opinion and advice.

During his long career at the Bar, Munshi had some
strange experiences. In December 1941, he received an urgent
message from Mahatma Gandhi asking him to proceed to

The Lawyer

Ratlam, a medium-sized princely State in Central India. Some
seven or eight persons, including a local doctor and a lawyer,
had been tried and sentenced to seven years’ rigorous
imprisonment on the charge of conspiring to overthrow
the lawfully established Government of Maharaja Sajjan Singh.
One of the accused had died in prison. There was no
propertrial and, with the suppression of the Praja Mandal, the
people were terror-stricken. Munshi was required to appear
before the Privy Council of the State which had agreed to hear
the appeal of the accused.

Munshi knew the state of affairs in most of the States.
Their subjects did not ask for anything more than government
by laws so that they might have security of life and property.
They wanted their rulers not to waste the meagre revenues on
costly eccentricities and to give a modest share in the
administration to the people’s representatives. To counter these
demands high-sounding constitutional principles were
propounded, claiming that the rulers were not free to divest
themselves of their powers and thus become disabled to fulfil
their obligations to the paramount power. Nobody had asked
them to strip themselves of their ruling powers to that extent.
The plain fact is that they were unwilling to shed their autocracy
and in this they were sometimes encouraged by the Political
Department of the Government of India. The hand of the
Political Department was evident in the so-called conspiracy
case in Ratlam.

Munshi was extremely busy at the time he was asked to
go to Ratlam. A mass of material about the case, much of it in
Hindi, needed to be studied. Fortunately, he had the able
assistance of Shelat, although he, like Munshi, was not much
conversant with Hindi. No adjournment of the case was
allowed. It was tried by the Dewan or Prime Minister, the

K. M. Munshi

Revenue Minister and the Home Minister of the State. The
Dewan blandly asked Munshi whether he could read his daily
newspaper during the proceedings! The Bombay lawyer gladly
agreed. It was evident from the very outset that the charges
against the accused were bogus. When asked with what
weapons these men wanted to overthrow the Government, the
Advocate for the State replied “rifles”. On inspection, permission
for which was most reluctantly given, the so-called weapons
turned out to be toy-guns of Japanese manufacture while the
“ammunition” for these lethal weapons happened to be a heap
of burnt matches! Munshi, who has described the case himself,
declared that it was more fantastic “than anything in a Gilbert
and Sullivan opera”. The whole proceedings were thus most
funny though not for the persecuted men.

The Maharaja was a good man who blamed his Defence
Minister, Shivjibhai, for mishandling the whole affair. Shivji was
a powerful and much-feared man in the State. He was an ill-
bred and arrogant fellow but he had sense enough to realise that
his game was up. He invited Munshi to his residence. In the
interest of the accused the lawyer could not refuse. He was
given a royal reception at Shivji’s house. The host pressed the
lawyer, who had made it an inflexible rule not to eat anything
between lunch and dinner, to taste at least one Kachauri, a
delicacy peculiar to Gujarat and Rajasthan. Again, for the sake
of his clients, Munshi complied. He has recorded that “it was
the finest of its kind”. He had a midnight interview with the
Maharaja to whom he suggested a modus vivendi for ordering
the release of all the accused persons. All was thus well that
ended well. As an epilogue to his narration of the case, Munshi
writes: “The professional etiquette in England affords a lady-
lawyer to shed tears — of course, professional — to secure a
verdict for her client. Why should I not eat a Kachauri to
secure the same result?”

The Lawyer

In 1 944, Munshi was required to conduct in the Madras
High Court a case described by Shelat as the cause celebre of
the century. A man called Lakshmikantam was a notorious
criminal. He had a great deal of vulgar talent, a daring
impetuosity and utter contempt for decency. In the thirties he
had escaped fromcustody twice when he was arraigned for
committing forgery. He went underground in the South, married
a girl and would probably have spent the rest of his life in
anonymity had not his birth marks betrayed him. He was re¬
arrested and sent to prison. After his release he started a Tamil
weekly called Cinema Thoothu which specialised in ruining the
reputation of well-known persons and more especially of those
of the cinema world. The weekly was suppressed but
Lakshmikantam started another organ called Hindu Nesan.

At that time the cinema industry was at the peak of its
prosperity. Munshi, who has written about the case himself,
says: “Rivers of black money flowed in swift floods”. The cinema
stars led the most glamorous lives, spent huge sums of money
recklessly and engaged themselves in “promiscuous intimacies”.
They thus provided ample grist to the adventurer’s journalistic
mill. He was a talented and forceful writer and since his exposures
were founded on more or less ascertained facts they were
most damaging to his victims. His weekly paper attained
phenomenal popularity and its issues could be bought only at a
premium. His slanderous and sensational writings titillated the
masses as nothing else could and they came to regard this
resourceful scoundrel as a messiah. But in the bargain he had
made many powerful enemies.

On November 8, 1944, Lakshmikantam was stabbed in
a rickshaw while he was returning home from his lawyer’s
residence. He was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died
after an operation. Fifty thousand people attended the funeral of

K. M. Munshi

“this self-constituted defender of the honour of Indian
womanhood.” It was not easy to trace the culprits, but,
following a tremendous public outcry, three leading cinema
figures, namely, M.K.Thiagaraja Bhagavathar, the popular
singer of cinema songs, N. S. Krishnan, a resourceful comedian,
and S. M Sriramalu Naidu, a well-known film director and
producer, were arrested. Munshi was briefed to defend the last-
named accused. As many as twenty six lawyers were engaged
in the case. Munshi’ s appearance on the scene created some
heart-burning among the elite of the Madras Bar. They
wondered how a civilian lawyer could acquit himself competently
in a criminal case. They were soon to realise how wrong they
were in their estimate of his abilities.

The prosecution was conducted by P. V. Rajamannar,
Advocate-General, who later became the Chief Justice of the
Madras High Court. So far as Munshi’s client, Sriramalu Naidu,
was concerned, he was told that the battle could be won if he
could succeed in proving the falsity of the evidence of the
prosecution witness, Kamalanathan, a relative of the dead man.
It was alleged that Lakshmikantam had first been attacked on
October 19 with a knife. Referring to this incident, Kamalanathan
had told the Magistrate that three days later, that is on October
22, he was present when Naidu and Bhagavathar were
discussing with another man about the killing of Lakshmikantam.

Munshi was instructed to extract from Kamalanathan the
admission that he had started from his residence to meet
Bhagavathar and Naidu on that day only after 4.30 P.M. and
not before because he believed that the rahukalam lasted till
that hour. Rahukalam, which occurs at varying but ascertainable
times, is generally avoided by orthodox persons in the South
when they go out on an important errand. Everything depended
upon Munshi’s skill in cross-examination. “For the first time in

The Lawyer

my experience”, he wrote, “the life of a human being was
hanging on my skill as a questioner”. He was somewhat
unnerved by the heaviness of his responsibility. Without giving
the slightest inkling to Kamalanathan as to what he was driving
at, the lawyer asked him at what time he reached the
place where the two accused were staying. He replied that it
was at 5 P.M. Replying to another carefully planned question,
he said that he did not leave his house earlier because of
rahukalam. The man fell into the cleverly-laid trap. The
inauspicious time ended at 4.30 P.M., not on October 22, but
on October 26 when Naidu was at the Taj Mahal Hotel in
Bombay. The collapse of Kamalanathan broke the back of the
prosecution case against Naidu who was acquitted. This
created a great sensation.

Munshi, who was promptly briefed to defend Krishnan,
was unsuccessful in his attempt. All the accused were found
guilty. The case went up to the Privy Council which held that the
evidence could be examined afresh by the Appeal Court.
This was done and the two accused were given the benefit of
the doubt and acquitted. Munshi did not forget the other
five accused who had neither the resources nor the influence
of Bhagavathar and Krishnan. He successfully sought the
intervention of Dr. P. Subharayan, Home Minister of Madras,
for their release. Commenting on Munshi’ s performance in the
famous case, Rajamannar wrote: “Being myself a devotee of
literature and a dabbler in play-writing, I could see and
appreciate very often the sweep of imagination and his intimate
knowledge of human nature in his cross-examination of the
prosecution witnesses”.

The second World War, which lasted from 1939 to
1945, was the most memorable event because it profoundly
affected the course of Indian history. Due to Whitehall’s in

K. M. Munshi

transigence on the issue of Indian freedom, the Congress
withdrew its ministries from eight provinces in October 1939,
leaving the field wide open for the Muslim League to crusade
for the destruction of the country’s immemorial territorial
integrity. Government by ordinances became a regular feature of
the Indian administration. In August 1942, the Congress
launched its famous “Quit India” movement which gave a further
impetus to the repressive policy of the Government. Small-
minded men made no bones about misusing their authority by
curtailing the civil liberties of the people. The provisions of the
Defence of India Act were flagrantly abused. Munshi, along
with a few fearless and self-abnegating lawyers, decided to
defend the personal liberty and the political rights of the people.
He performed this self-imposed task with missionary zeal and
moved up and down the country for this purpose.

Munshi went to the rescue of the famous Editor of
the Bombay Sentinel, B. G. Horniman, against whom the
Allahabad High Court had issued a warrant of arrest for
Contempt of Court. The lawyer’s contention that the Allahabbad
High Court had no jurisdiction to issue such a warrant in other
provinces was upheld by the Bombay High Court. The verdict
created a sensation in the country. Munshi won the Horniman
case by calling attention to the fact that there had been no
precedent for issuing such a warrant. The Contempt of Court
proceedings against the Tribune of Lahore, however, demanded
tremendous efforts on the part of Munshi to win for that paper
and for the Indian press as a whole the right to publish news
and to comment on public affairs freely and without the fear of
dire consequences.

The Contempt of Court case against the paper was heard
by a full bench of the Lahore High Court consisting of Chief
Justice Sir Trevor Harris, Justice Munir and Justice Teja Singh.

The Lawyer

Sir Manoharlal was then a Minister of the Punjab Government
besides being a trustee of the Tribune . He mildly hinted to his
guest that the Gandhi cap he wore might not be liked by the
Court. Munshi replied that if that was so somebody else would
have to conduct the case. The cap, we are told, stood the test
! Sir Trevor, according to Munshi, was not only one of the
greatest judges but also “pleasant, informal, clear-headed,
open-minded, courteous”. Munshi went into the Law of
Contempt of Court at clients with great cogency for several
days. He was heard great length, presenting his arguments on
behalf of his by all in silence except by Justice Munir who often
interrupted him as he was annoyed at his judgment being
questioned. He asked with some heat: “Why should the papers
publish the comments of a Judge? For their own safety they
should publish only the Judgments”. The counsel reminded the
Judge that in that event the freedom of the press would be lost.
Justice Munir declared: “Justice is not a handmaid of journalists”.
Munshi mildly but firmly retorted: “Neither, my Lord, is it a
cloistered virtue that cannot stand the public gaze”. Munshi won
the Tribune case.

Munshi had to return to Lahore soon, this time
on a strange misson. Jayaprakash Narayan was among the
prominent and most active participants in the "Quit India"
movement. After much effort the Government arrested him and
held him in duress at Lahore. H.R. Pardiwala, a lawyer from
Bombay, proceeded to Lahore to file a Habeas Corpus
petition on his behalf. The Government of Punjab realised that
it was impossible to resist the petition and accordingly declared
Jayaprakash Narayan a State prisoner under Regulation III of
1818 in order to take away jurisdiction of the judiciary in the
case. Pardiwala was himself arrested as soon as he came out
of the High Court after filing the Habeas Corpus application.

K. M. Munshi

Munshi saw the futility of going to Lahore to defened
Jayaprakash Narayan’s petition but he was persuaded to
proceed. During the train journey he drafted a petition against
three C.I.D. officers of the Punjab for arresting Pardiwala while
performing his duty as an advocate and for withholding from the
High Court of Lahore his Habeas Corpus petition made while
he was in jail. On reaching the High Court he applied for a rule
for contempt against all the three police officers. Pardiwala had
maintained a diary of the happenings at Lahore and one of the
entries showed the date on which he had submitted the Habeas
Corpus application. The Court permitted Munshi to cross-
examine Superintendent Robinson, a powerful man at that time.
Closely questioned by the counsel, he admitted that, far from
forwarding Pardiwala’s Habeas Corpus application to his
superior officer, he had torn it up. Asked why he did so, he
replied: “I think I was foolish”. Munshi’s triumph at Lahore was
yet another feather in his cap as an astute lawyer.

Following the arrest of all the prominent Congress leaders
on August 8, 1942, as a pre-emptive action against the “Quit
India” movement, the country became leaderless. There was
violence in some parts as a protest against Government’s
oppressive measures. In the villages of Chimur and Ramtek and
in the town of Ashti, all in the Central Provinces, now known
as Madhya Pradesh, mobs rose in rebellion against authority,
killing some officers and indulging in arson and looting. The
Government, after ruthlessly suppressing the riots, put a number
of persons on trial. Munshi and his colleagues, including
Shelat, A. C. Amin and J.H. Dave, defended the accused. The
Chimur case gained greater public attention since Professor
Bhansali went on an indefinite fast demanding an impartial
inquiry into the excesses committed by soldiers in that village.
Munshi also played a crucial role in securing the release of the
well-known Socialist leader, Purshottam Trikamdas, who, like

The Lawyer

Jayaprakash Narayan, had done much to galvanize the “Quit
India” movement.

Munshi’s career as a lawyer did not end with his hectic
war-time professional activities. National independence saw
him holding important positions in the Government.
He duly returned to the Bar after fulfilling his obligations to
the State. Neither age nor long spells of absence from the law
courts had diminished his abilities either as a lawyer or as an
advocate. He showed the same skill and originality in the
interpretation of the law and the same astuteness in his
arguments. His appearance in the Express Newspapers
Private Ltd. case, in the Hamdard Dawakhana case and in
the Mulaji Saheb ’s case made legal history. He gave repeated
proofs before the highest judiciary of the land, the Supreme
Court, that his forensic powers, far from fading away, were in
fact on the increase.

Munshi had some firm convictions about the duties and
obligations of the profession of a lawyer and was not prepared
to compromise with them on any account. In 1941, he received
from Mahatma Gandhi through Sardar Patel a message urging
him not to appear against the Indian National Trade Union
Congress on behalf of his employer-clients. He did not accept
this suggestion. He explained that as long as a lawyer was in
practice, his professional obligations demanded that he should
not deny his services to those who retained him unless for
personal reasons he could not do justice to their case. He made
it clear to the Mahatma that he could not abjure his professional
obligations so long as he remained in practice.

The question whether a lawyer should defend only
innocent persons is as old as the history of law and indeed of
justice itself. It was asked in Athens and in Rome and continues
to be asked down to the present day. For instance the legend

K. M. Munshi

grew that the famous British lawyer, Sir Edward Clarke,
K. C., never defended anybody unless he believe him to be
innocent. It had, of course, no foundation in fact. It is not the
business of counsel to decide whether people are guilty or not.
A greater advocate than Clarke, the immortal Erskine, told the
jury thus when defending Tom Paine: "If the advocate refuses to
defend from what he may think of the charge or the defence, he
assumes the character of the judge, nay, he assumes it before
the hour of judgment... and puts the heavy influence of a
perhaps mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused . "*

Munshi found the profession of law both challenging and
rewarding. He had reached its summit but his dynamism, and
versatility drove him into other fields of activity. The calls of the
Muse and the motherland were indeed resistible. A gifted writer
in Gujarati, it was impossible for him to repress his creative
urges. Even as he was building up his legal career and was
scaling new heights in that profession, which demanded the
most strenuous exertions on his part, he wrote abundantly,
continually enriching and enlarging the Gujarati literature. By the
time he decide to return to politics, there were to his credit
more than twenty works, including short stories, social,
mythological and historical novels and plays, literary criticism
and historical biographies.

The happenings in the country, which will be dealt with in
the ensuing chapters, and the call of Mahatma Gandhi for
sacrifice by his countrymen decided Munshi to throw away his
lucrative practice. Both the Bar and the Bench of Bombay were
unhappy about it. Sir Chimanlal Setalvad strongly advised him
not to re-enter politics, but he plunged “headlong” into the

*Six Great Advocates by Lord Birkett, Penguin, 1961, p. 49.

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Gandhian movement*. The Chief Justice of Bombay said to a
lawyer: “Look, what Munshi has gone and done! I was just
thinking of recommending him for a High Court Judgeship.”
Munshi was in the company of illustrious lawyers like C.R. Das,
Motilal Nehru, M. R. Jayakar, Bhulabhai Desai and many
others when he gave up his practice. None of these eminent
men believed in boycotting the law courts, but they were too
patriotic to ignore the Mahatma’s call for sacrifice.

* Recollections and Reflections by Sir Chimanlal H. Setalvad, Padma
Publications, 1 946, p. 7 1 .

The Exemplars

MUNSHI HAD GREAT admiration for Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, Dr. Annie Besant, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel. When he entered the Bombay Bar in 1910
it was his desire to become Jinnah’ s junior but was persuaded
by Jamietram, the attorney, to accept Bhulabhai Desai as his
senior. Both then and for several decades thereafter, Jinnah was
highly esteemed by the politically-conscious intellectual classes
of Western India. At that time, he was an uncompromising
secularist and an ardent patriot, besides being an able and
astute advocate. Like most of his Hindu friends, who never
allowed their political outlook to be darkened by religious
prejudice, he was admirably non-communal in his attitudes and
utterances. Munshi, who was closely associated with him for
many years both in politics and in the legal profession, writes :
“He (Jinnah) had never visited a mosque; he had never read the
Koran so far as I know; he did not know any language other
than Gujarati, English and Kutchhi — a dialect used by the
Hindus and Muslims of Kutch and some parts of Kathiawad,
from which he himself came”*. This was also the view of Dr.
B.R. Ambedkar.

Jinnah, before he became a convert to Islamic irredentism,
scorned bigotry. He once told Pandit Motilal Nehru, another

* Indian Constitutional Documents, Volume I, Pilgrimage to Freedom
(1902-1950) by K. M. Munshi, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,
1967, p. 8.

The Exemplars

convinced secularist, that he abhorred the Mullahs and believed
in 4 ‘none of their nonsense” although he had somehow “to carry
these fools along”. The Mullahs in their turn never regarded him
as a true follower of Islam, some of them parading his photo in
the countryside to tell their fanatical co-religionists that his
beardless face was least Islamic. Even when the flame of
religion began to bum brightly in his fragile frame in the evening
of his life, when the British discovered a new destiny for him,
he remained as ignorant of Islam as during his great nationalist
days. Colin Reid of the Daily Telegraph had made a profound
study of the Koran in Arabic. He often met Jinnah after the
latter had become Quaid-i-Azam but found that his knowledge
in such matters was nil.

From the beginning of his career as lawyer-politician,
Jinnah had found the company and friendship of Hindu
intellectuals most congenial to his temperament and outlook. He
built up his reputation as an outstanding advocate by appearing,
as we saw in the last chapter, in a number of cases involving the
interpretation of Hindu Law. Gopal Krishna Gokhale was his
greatest exemplar in the political life. And yet this man, turned
his back on nationalism and worked with relentless pertinacity
for the destmction of the millennia-old territorial integrity of this
great land.

The advent of Mahatma Gandhi to national politics was
an event of historic importance. By 1920, especially after
Lokmanya Tilak’s death, he became the unchallenged leader of
the Congress. As he had done to the Home Rule League, he set
about re-organising the Congress to impart dynamism to its
politics. At the Nagpur session in December 1920, the
Congress creed was radically changed under his inspiration. Its
political goal, as it was originally defined read thus: “The objects
of the Indian National Congress are the attainment by the

K. M. Munshi

people of India of a system of government similar to that
enjoyed by the self-governing members of the British Empire
and a participation by them in the rights and responsibilities of
the Empire on equal terms with those members.” This goal was
replaced by another thus: “The object of the Indian National
Congress is the attainment of Swarajya by the people of India
by all legitimate and peaceful means”*.

The amendment was of great significance since it at once
transformed the Congress from an upper-class urban club into
a countrywide mass organisation capable of going deep into the
heart of Indian society, the village. The coming of Gandhi to
Indian politics had upset many a leader and had led to the
formation of the National Liberal Federation of India in
November 1918. The change in the Congress constitution gave
a further fillip to the exodus from its ranks. Munshi’ s reactions
to the Nagpur decision were precisely like those of his political
chief, Jinnah. “The Congress session”, he wrote, “looked less
like a political body than a religious gathering celebrating the
advent of a Messiah. Jinnah (and, if my memory is right, also
Malaviyaji and Khaparde) stood up in that jeering assembly and
opposed the official resolution. After Nagpur, led by Jinnah,
about twenty of us left the Congress”.

From the time Jinnah lost the Congress platform, his
public behaviour became unpredictable. Munshi has written that
Jinnah saw him in the Bar Library of the Bombay High court
and suggested that he and a number of others should come
together to oppose the British Government’s White Paper on
the Indian constitutional reforms. There were preliminary
discussions among some of the leaders but nothing came out of

Mahatma by D. G. Tendulkar, Volume II, Publications Division,
Government of India, p. 19.

# Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, p. 18.

The Exemplars

them, as most of the participants were uncompromisingly
opposed to the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald's
Communal Award. With the deepening of the European crisis
and the gathering of the war clouds over the horizon, Jinnah's
political fortune took an entirely new turn. In 1938, Lord
Lothian, "a brilliant and well-informed statesman", told Munshi
in Bombay that the British were building up Jinnah as they were
not sure that the Congress would support them in the event of
a World War.

When Munshi met the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, on May
26, 1939, he was asked to tell Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar
Patel that they should agree to the introduction of federation
under the Government of India Act, 1935. Munshi writes: "He
(the Viceroy) was emphatic that, much as he disliked it, if the
federal part was not introduced early enough, Jinnah would
disrupt India. I sent to Gandhiji a report of the interview"*.
When the war broke out in September, Jinnah was given
unparalleled inportance by the British and succeeded in
destroying India's territorial unity if only to spite Congress
leadership. A thoroughly disillusioned man, Munshi campaigned
for "Akhand Hindustan" or undivided India in the vain hope that
the situation could be somehow saved.

When Gandhi arrived in Bombay in January 1915, after
an absence in South Africa for nearly twenty-two years, the elite
of the city assmbled to greet him. Most of its member had
become inured to the Western style of living and expected to
see the great man in well-cut European clothes with a great
capacity for platform oratory in English. What they saw was,
however, entirely different. Munshi writes: "The guest arrived,
barefooted, dressed in a short dhoti, and a Kathiawadi

* Pilgrimage to Freedom, Volume 1, pp. 35,53.

K. M. Munshi

angarkha and sapha. He was the very image of insignificance.
Aristocracy stood shocked beyond words". A fashionable lady
in the audience remarked that Gandhi looked like her tailor,
Dhana! While Gandhi’s decision to return to the national dress
and to speak only the language of the people and not English
scandalised the white-collared fraternity, it thrilled the younger
generation*. Convention and conformity never deflectecd
Gandhi from his own course of action.

Gandhi, the co-operator, was forced to become Britain’s
most formidable rebel when it became evident that Whitehall had
no intention at all of surrendering power to Indians. He gave first
proofs of the effectiveness of his leadership in 1917 by prevailing
upon the British planters at Champaran in Bihar to abandon their
long-established practice of coercing the peasants there to grow
indigo for their factories. His call for a countrywide opposition
to the notorious Rowlatt Bills in March 1919 won such a
tremendous popular response that it caused great fury to Sir
Michael O’ Dwyer, Governor of Punjab, who declared that there
was “another force greater than Gandhi’s soul force”. The
Jallianwala tragedy was the outcome of such intolerance even
towards a totally non-violent movement. The Gandhi led civil
disobedience movement of 1921-22, directed towards securing
redress for the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs, lasted for some
fourteen months, giving fright to the bureaucrats in India and the
imperialists in England. The Mahatma’s declaration “Swaraj in
one year” caused convulsions in diehard hearts.

Following the Labour Party’s assumption of power in
1929, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced on October 31, that
the “natural issue of India’s constitutional progress” was “the
attainment of Dominion Status”. The declaration was widely

*7 Follow the Mahatma by K. M. Munshi, p. 2.

The Exemplars

welcomed in India, especially since it was made during
Labour’s regime, rather mistakenly believed to be in favour of
the Indian demand. It was hoped that Indian aspirations would
at last find their fulfilment because Dominion Status was
considered to be equal to the status of Britain herself. The
Viceroy was, however, forced to retrace his steps when
powerful vested interests in Britain declared their implacable
hostility to his announcement.

Prominent Congress leaders of the younger generation
like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were anxious
to organise a retaliatory movement. At its annual session in
December 1929, presided over by Nehru, the Congress
solemnly resolved that the country should thenceforward
observe January 26 as “Independence Day”. Every year from
1930, thousands of Indians took solemn pledges on that day to
liberate their motherland from foreign rule. The Mahatma, who
was pressed by mettlesome youngmen to start another convulsive
movement, soon responded to their plea. On March 20, 1930,
he set out with seventy-eight members of his ashram on his
historic march to Dandi, a seaside resort on the west coast, to
break the salt laws. He ceremonially broke the salt law on
April 5, thus giving a lead to his countrymen to do likewise
on an extensive scale.

His arrest on May 4 did not slow down the movement.
As many as ninety thousand Satyagrahis, many of them beaten
up savagely, were seized and sent to prison. Neither Irwin, the
“Christian Viceroy”, nor India’s “well-wishers” in the Labour
Government could prevent the bureaucratic barbarism. The
Viceroy and the Governors of many provinces were both
surprised and alarmed at the dimensions of the movement.
Military experts also viewed the situation with concern. The
shadows were thus steadily lengthening on an Empire in which

K. M. Munshi

the sun had never set before. Earlier, in 1928, Gandhi had
shown in the famous Bardoli Satyagraha, to which reference will
be made at some length in the following pages, that he could
mould heroes out of clay.

Many thinking persons, some of them none too friendly
towards India, have endorsed the Gandhian methods. The
greatness of Gandhi’s achievement in overcoming the forces of
terrorism should not, says an authority, be underestimated
because of the completeness of its success. Since they were
founded on moral principles, his campaigns ought to be
regarded as extra rather than as anti-constitutional. The
Mahatma “brought in the moral law to supplement rather than
supplant official law, and thus saved India during the British
period from large-scale terrorism, massacre, and race-hatred”*.
The joint authors of a well known book, by no means
sympathetic to Gandhi, write: “Perhaps his achievement which
in the long run will be found to have had the most lasting results
is the revival of self confidence in the average India”#.

Munshi was a convinced constitutionalist. He would
not have given up the legal profession and made common
cause with the Mahatma if he had persuaded himself that the
Gandhian methods would heavily mortgage the future of his
motherland. The 1928 Bardoli dispute was entirely agrarian
without any political implications. Munshi, as a non-Congress
member of the Bombay legislature, and many others made
the most earnest efforts to persuade the authorities including
the Governor, to promote a settlement strictly on merits but
their plea fell on deaf ears. The Bardoli episode clinched the

*The Oxford History of India, 1958, p. 765.

# India and Democracy by Sir George Schuster and Guy Wint
Macmillan, 1941, p. 121.

The Exemplars

issue for Munshi who participated in most of the subsequent
popular movements, inviting arrest and imprisonment on several
occasions. His admiration for Gandhi grew with the years and
his book I Follow the Mahatma , published in 1940, was a
sequel to his conversion.

For men like Munshi, it was a mental torture to keep
away from the popular movement. While Bardoli converted him
to Gandhism, the Mahatma’s “immortal” march to Dandi
decided him to go to the world’s end with the great leader.
Writing to Gandhi on April 14, 1930, he said: “I am now
offering my services, feeble as they are, to you. Perhaps
delicate health may make it difficult for me to bear the strenuous
life of hardships and comparative poverty which I will have to
face, but when the whole of Gujarat and with it India has started
on a glorious march to martyrdom, I, who dreamt of their
greatness through my literary efforts, cannot stand by and look
on”. When Munshi and Abbas Tyabji met him later, the
Mahatma remarked with a smile: “Both of you have come back
from your Vanavasa (life in the forest)!” Munshi has recorded
that Gandhi’s was a curious comment, seeing that he had led a
very successful life. He never accepted everything the Mahatma
said as a mandate from heaven. In later years, he had to part
company with his leader again, but his esteem for the Mahatma
remained' undiminished. This is how he viewed his exemplar:
“Through my intimate contact with Gandhiji I was to discover
later that if he was a statesman he was also a practical mystic;
an apostle of the moral order; a prophet who gave us a vision
of a non-violent world. When a personality of such a stature
descends on a people, he becomes an avalanche overwhelming
every resistance”.

Another person who profoundly influenced Munshi ’s
political life was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The combination

K. M. Munshi

between Vallabhbhai and Gandhi produced momentous results
during the pre-independence period. Belatedly becoming a
Barrister, Vallabhabhai had settled down to a lucrative practice
at Ahmedabad. For sometime he was sceptical about Gandhi’s
relevance to Indian politics but the Mahatma’s success in the
Champaran episode convinced him that the newcomer was not
just a platform orator but a man of action par excellence.
When Gandhi assumed the Presidentship of the Gujarat Sabha,
founded in 1884, he at once put an end to the long phase of
supplication that had marked its activities. Vallabhbhai became
an active member of the Gujarat Sabha and got many
opportunities to show the British bureaucrats their real place.
With the Mahatma’s support, he succeeded in compelling the
Government to suppress the pernicious practice of forced
labour for officers touring villages on duty.

Vallabhbhai rose to the pinnacle of popularity in Gujarat by
incessantly working among the people. He was as well-known as
the Mahatma in that region and was better known in some of its
parts. He was always to the fore whenever the popular cause
needed to be championed. His major achievement in the pre¬
independence period was his leadership of the Bardoli Satyagraha
of 1928. Bardoli is a taluka in Gujarat. It was the practice of the
Bombay Government to revise the land revenue assessment at
the end of thirty years after making a survey. The revision became
due in 1926 and the settlement work was entrusted to an Indian
officer who did not know much about it. After a perfunctory
survey of the economic condition of the taluka and on the strength
of faulty statistics, he recommended a sharp increase in the
assessment. The Settlement Commissioner, a Briton, was equally
negligent in fulfilling his responsibilities. The Government also
handled the case with ineptitude and decided that the prevailing
levy should be raised by 22 per cent. The peasants protested
against the additional impost and refused to pay it.

The Exemplars

Munshi, who was watching the Bardoli developments
with deep concern, decided to tell the Governor of Bombay, Sir
Leslie Wilson, how wrong his Government’s policy was. In
1926, he had been elected to the Bombay Legislative Council
as an Independent and felt called upon as a repressentative of
the people, to address the head of the Government on an issue
of vital public importance. He was prompted to do so by the
high-handed methods that were being employed to collect the
enhanced assessment from the Bardoli peasants. Writing to the
Governor on May 27, 1928, he called his attention to the fact
that the peasants asked for nothing more than an independent
re-enquiry to make sure whether the settlement work had been
done properly or not. He strongly protested against the
employment of Pathans, to intimidate the peace-loving and law-
abiding ryots into submission. He also complained against “the
communal aspect which the payment of dues is made to
assume” and against the appointment of Special Magistrates to
collect the enhanced revenue. The Governor’s reply of May 29
added insult to injury. He charged that a definite attempt was
“being made to coerce Government by the use of the weapon
of civil disobedience”. The Government, he asserted, was
bound to take up the challenge.

After all attempts by Munshi and other “constitutionally-
minded” people to promote a settlement had failed and when
the Government gave orders to the village officers to start
collecting the increased levy from February 5, 1928, Vallabhbhai
decided to enter the fray in response to the Bardoli peasants’
earnest request. He told them that it would be a grim struggle
in which they were likely to lose their all. He wrote a polite
letter to the Governor on February 6, asking for an impartial
re-examination of the issue. Bureaucratic arrogance was evident
in the reply sent by a subordinate officer. The Commissioner of
the Northern Division had the audacity to describe men like

K. M. Munshi

Vallabhbhai as “a swarm of agitators living on the people of
Bardoli”. Mahatma Gandhi was provoked into asking what sort
of perversity it was which led an alien Government to call
leaders like Vallabhbhai foreigners to Bardoli.

Munshi felt that his style of living in Bombay was
unpardonable when an inferno was raging in one part of his
dearly-loved Gujarat. He decided to go to Bardoli and see
things for himself. He had promised the Governor that he would
do so and report to him about the state of affairs there strictly
as a “constitutionalist”. He accordingly visited the taluka on June
16. Conveying to the Governor his impressions about the
Bardoli struggle, he maintained that the men who led it had no
intention at all of importing politics into it. The popular protest
was complete and spontaneous. In the taluka, with its 130
villages, 69 out of 90 patels and 11 out of 15 talatis had
resigned. Munshi further wrote: “In a few villages which I visited
not a man or woman, was either sorry for the attitude or shaken
in the faith which he or she had adopted”. Munshi’s
correspondence with Sir Leslie Wilson had a strong impact on
informed opinion. Commenting on Munshi’s last letter to the
Governor, Mahadev Desai, the Secretary of Mahatma Gandhi,
wrote: “This letter sent a thrill through the hearts of all who had
any fellow-feeling for their compatriots and placed the Bardoli
question in the forefront of all questions engaging
public attention”.

The Bardoli episode drew Munshi closer to the Mahatma
and the Sardar. It became impossible for him to keep himself
away from them, especially when a great popular movement
had been launched for national liberation. He rejoined the
Congress on April 14, 1930, and was arrested fourteen days
later. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and a fine
of Rs. 300 for taking part in the Salt Satyagraha and was sent

The Exemplars

to Yeravda Central Prison in Poona During this period, Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar visited the prison to have
discussions with Gandhi to promote an understanding with the
Irwin Government. Nothing came out of the move immediately.

The Sardar’s capabilities as an organiser and disciplin¬
arian became more widely known when the Congress decided to
form its ministries in a majority of British Indian provinces in 1937
under the Government of India Act of 1935. His role as the
Chairman of the Congress Parliamentary Sub-Committee was
unenviable, but he played it with superb self-confidence and
impartiality. K. F. Nariman, a front-rank Congress leader of
Bombay, who had won a great reputation as a fearless fighter of
official corruption, nursed a grievance against the Sardar on the
ground that he was prevented from becoming the Premier of
Bombay by rejecting him as the leader of the Congress legislature
party. The part played by him in 1934 stood against him on this
occasion. In that year, he and Dr. G. V. Deshmukh had been
chosen as Congress candidates to contest two seats in the
Legislative Assembly from the city of Bombay. The electoral rolls
were published on July 14 and nominations were invited till the
afternoon of October 1 1 . While Dr. Deshmukh took the trouble
of verifying his eligibility, Nariman did not, although he was
expressly asked to do so, especially when he and his brother
bore the same initials. As late as October 10, he told a surprised
Sardar, who was about to leave for Wardha, that he
was debarred from contesting the elections. Much against
Munshi’s will, the Sardar persuaded him to step into the breach.
Nariman’s strange behaviour was attributed to his friendship for
the rival candidate, Sir Cowasji Jehangir, whose victory he
probably wanted to ensure. The Sardar could not easily forget
the defeat of the Congress candidate.

K. M. Munshi

Overcoming its revulsion for the Act of 1935, the
Congress assumed the responsibilities of government in eight
out of the eleven British Indian provinces. B. G. Kher became
the Premier of Bombay province, with Munshi holding the key
Home portfolio. How Munshi acquitted himself as a Minister
and grappled with the communal problem will be discussed in
a subsequent chapter. He says that the Sardar was the main
source of his strength during that period. They were together in
the Yeravda Prison in 1940-41 and when Munshi fell ill, the
senior man looked after him with “almost maternal care”. They
had come to understand each other “instinctively”. Munshi was
deeply impressed with the Sardar because he was a man of
determination and was single-minded in the pursuit of his goal.
During the pre-independence period, the Sardar gave his
unquestioning loyalty to the Mahatma because he convinced
that disciplined behaviour was the sine qua non of success.

To him the cause was always greater than the man. He was
made of a sterner stuff which ensured that the Congress remained
a disciplined organisation during the momentous nineteen thirties
and forties. His personality was a power and there was about
him a force of mind and down-rightness which greatly appealed
to the honest and caused dismay to the guilty. It could be said of
him, as it was said of a great Roman, that it was harder for him
to utter threats than to execute them. And yet he was the most
generous and considerate man. “To work under Sardar”, says
Munshi, “had been always a privilege and pleasure, for above all
he was a wise and generous chief’.

Swaraj Without Substance

S WE SAW IN AN earlier chapter, the Montagu

il Chelmsford proposals, which were churned into the
Government of India Act of 1919, were most disappointing.
Besides causing dissatisfaction even to moderatelndian opinion,
the curious structure of the constitutional scheme ensured its
failure. Disillusionment soon came to those who had set out to
give it an honest trial. Sir C.Y.Chintamani, a liberal statesman of
great distinction, who had become a Minister in the United
Provinces under the new dispensation, narrated his experience
on May 20, 1923. He said: “At the top there is the Governor
whose relation to his Ministers is not the true relation of the
Governor in the self-governing Dominions to his Ministers but
the relation of a superior authority in whom much reserve power
is vested”. Another co-operating Indian, Sir A.P.Patro, a
Madras Minister, complained in June 1924 that the Ministers
were so “completely under the power of the Governor” that
there was no room for the development of “joint and corporate
responsibility under the circumstances”.

This is not surprising because the British Government
never intended to leave India until the compulsions of the
second world war forced it to give up its obstinacy. The British
bureaucracy in India was notoriously hostile to Indian political
aspirations. Munshi, who entered the Bombay Legislative
Council in 1926, did not take long to realise that the
legislatures under the Act of 1919 were little more than

K. M. Munshi

consultative, deliberative and advisory bodies. His visit to Simla
convinced him that the bureaucracy was all powerful in this
country. “Experience” he wrote, “revealed one thing: the
bureaucracy was in all matters inflexibly hostelile to nationalist
Indians”. Only assertive Governors General could really claim
to govern the country. Others merely allowed themselves to be
guided by the “men on the spot”. He described Lord Irwin,
whose Viceroyalty from 1926 to 1931 was marked by epoch-
making events, as the fly on the wheel which thought that it
turned the official machine.

Birkenhead was an extremely alert Secretary of State for
India. The Act of 1919 provided for an investigation into the
constitutional future of the country at the end of every ten
year period. The Noble Lord felt that it would be disastrous to
Britain’s imperial interests if such an inquiry was to be
authorised by the so-called radical British Labour Party when it
came into power. This able but diehard statesman apprehended
a Bolshy behind every lamp-post and at every street comer!
He, therefore, used all the resources of conservatism in
selecting the leader of the Statutory Commission to sit in
judgment on India’s fitness for self-rule. It was to be an all-
White Commission, presided over by an ardent worshipper at
the shrine of imperialism.

Sir John Simon, upon whom the choice of Chairmanship
fell, was a brilliant advocate who had a reputation as the most
expensive lawyer of his country. He was given six colleagues, all
of whom belonged to the category of Shelley’s “illustrious
obscure”. Only one of them, Clement, Attlee, eventually emerged
from obscurity to become his country’s Labour Prime Minister.
Simon was a notorious reactionary. His conservatism repelled
most of his forward-looking countrymen.

Swaraj Without Substance

His Commission, whose appointment was announced in
November 1927, arrived in India in February 1928 for a
prehminary investigation and to secure Indian collaboration in its
undertaking. Simon’s suggestion for a “joint free conference”
with Indian legislators was categorically rejected by the Central
Legislative Assembly which refused to cooperate with the
Commission except on equal terms. There was countrywide
opposition to the foreign investigators who were greeted with a
forest of funereal banners wherever they went. The Commission’s
second visit, which lasted from October 11, 1928 to April 13,
1929, drove the country into a minor holocaust. Many
respected leaders were insulted and manhandled by the police
when they led protest demonstrations. The great Punjab leader,
Lala Lajpat Rai, was brutally assaulted by the police which
ended in his death.

The report of the Commission, published in May 1930,
faithfully reflected the mind of its Chairman. It is precisely
because it gave away nothing that it was hailed as a “constitutional
masterpiece”. The Commission recommended the abolition of
the hated system of dyarchy but this fact did not improve the
position of the ministers who were condemned to remain
subservient to the Governor as before. The Governor should
indeed have an unchallenged right to take over the administration
of his province and should be further empowered to “restore
rejected demands for grants, and to certify legislation if in his
opinion it is essential for any interest in the province”. The
provinces were thus to have a kind of guided democracy — a
“privilege” that was firmly denied to the Centre which was to
remain unsullied by the taint of popular control over it. “Our own
view”, the Commission said, “is that, until the provinces of India
have established themselves, by the working of unitary governments
as self governing units, the ultimate form which the Central

K. M. Munshi

Government of India will take cannot be determined”.* ‘The one
good thing about this reactionary report is that it became out of
date even before its publication, causing deep mortification to its
chief author.

The fall of the Conservative ministry and the advent of
Labour to power in England in May 1929, with Ramsay
MacDonald as Prime Minister and Wedgwood Benn as
Secretary of State for India, kindled the hope in this country
that the new British rulers would respond favourably to Indian
political aspirations. On his return from mid-term leave, the
Viceroy announced on October 31, 1929, that he had been
authorised to state clearly that in the judgment of the British
Government “it is implicit in the declaration of 1917 that the
natural issue of India’s constitutional progress, as there
contemplated, is the attainment of Dominion Status”. Indian
leaders interpreted the announcement as meaning that the
proposed London conference would be held not to discuss
when Dominion Status would be given to India, but to frame a
constitution conferring that status on her. The deliberations there
would be simple and straightforward in order to settle the terms
of Indian freedom.

The Irwin announcement created a mighty furore in
England. Whitehall lost no time in going back on its own
commitment. The Viceroy laid at rest all speculations about his
October announcement when he told the Legislative Assembly
in January 1930 that “the assertion of a goal is of necessity a
different thing from the goal’s attainment. No sensible traveller
would feel that the clear definition of his destination was the
same thing as the completion of his journey”.

* Report of the Indian Statutory Commission (Simon Commission),
Volume II, Government of India, Calcutta, 1930, para 17, p. 143.

Swaraj Without Substance

Mahatma Gandhi was prepared to accept a variant of
complete independence if it meant a substantial devolution of
authority to Indian hands. Such conciliatory attitude produced
no immediate results, but the deadlock was broken in the
following year when Gandhi and Irwin held prolonged discussions
on the Indian problem. The outcome of the talks was a pact
between the two, signed on March 5, 1931. The terms of the
agreement revealed that as a political negotiator the Mahatma
could be over-generous. He was neatly outmanoeuvred by the
Viceroy and heartily abused by that sublime reactionary,
Winston Churchill, who called him a “half-naked” and “seditious
fakir”. Gandhi, however, never felt discomfited because he
knew that his cause was not only just but invincible. Munshi
viewed the Pact realistically. He wrote: “It was the greatest
event in Indian history for centuries. An Indian representing the
whole of India had entered into an agreement as a High
Contracting Party with the representative of the greatest Empire
in modem times”.

On Irwin’s retirement, he was succeeded to the Indian
Viceroyalty by Lord Willingdon in April 1931. Willingdon had
earlier put in long service in this country as Governor of
Bombay and Madras and was sixty-five years old when he
assumed the new office. The injudicious recommendation of a
Socialist successor to Irwin by the Labour Prime Minister vastly
improved the chances of this old man for that exalted position.
In dealing with the Indian political situation, the Viceroy
addressed himself to the achievement of two objectives: first, to
reduce the Gandhi-Irwin Pact to a dead-letter by reviving
official repression and, secondly, to manage somehow to send
Gandhi to London to attend the second session of the Indian
Round Table Conference. The second goal was as important as
the first, from the imperialist point of view. It was felt that
Congress absence from such important deliberations would

K. M. Munshi

greatly depreciate their value. More importantly, its presence
was considered essential to demonstrate to a watching world
India’s “unfitness” for self-rule by means of a carefully-
contrived fiasco of the talks.

The first Round Table Conference, which began on
November 12, 1930, and dispersed on January 19, 1931,
was, like its two successors, foredoomed to fail. The
Conservatives, whose influence over their’ national affairs was
always dominant, no matter whether they were in office or not,
had made a firm resolution not to allow any worthwhile transfer
of power to Indians. At the second Round Table Confernce a
Federal Structure Committee was set up to examine the
feasibility of framing a federal constitution for india. Munshi
prepared a note, making a critical assessment of the system,
and submitted it to Mahatma Gandhi. His conception of
federation was, however, fundamentally different from that
advocated by the Conservative diehards and their faithful ally,
the Princely Order. He envisaged a federal government based
on real power. It must be a government armed with plenary
powers to perform all the functions pertaining to a truly national
government. At a dinner party in Bombay the Maharaja of
Bikaner invited him to give his views on the subject. Munshi
explained to his audience that if the rulers of the States were
given a well-defined share in the federal government, they
should cease to insist that thay were “sovereign” entities.

Although the first London conference on India was
marked by solemn speeches and declarations, its outcome was
singularly sterile. Mahatma Gandhi had no illusions that his
presence in the second round of talks, which began on
September 7 and ended on December 10, 1931, would be
productive. The Labour Government, even if it was sincere,
could not do much on the Indian question. It would have been

Swaraj Without Substance

brought down if it had ignored Conservative prejudices.
Meanwhile, a grave financial crisis led to the replacement of that
Government by a coalition of three parties, with the turncoat
Ramsay MacDonald continuing as the Prime Minister and Sir
Samuel Hoare (later Lord Temple wood) taking the place of
Wedgwood Benn in the India Office.

Gandhi returned to India, reaching Bombay on December
28, 1931. The spectacle that confronted him in the country was
forbidding. Willingdon had made the most irresponsible use of
his special powers in an attempt to suppress Indian national
spirit. Hoare, the Secretary of State, felt constrained to admit
that “the Ordinances that we have approved are very drastic
and severe. They cover almost every activity of Indian life”.
Repression is a standard technique employed by all tyrants and
oppressors, but in most cases it has proved singularly ineffective.
This truth was confirmed in India, as it was in Ireland. There
was always a sizable number of men and women in the country
who were prepared to invite any suffering by following the
Mahatma. On the evening of January 3, 1932, Munshi’s mother,
Tapibehn, met Gandhi at his prayer meeting. When he asked
her whether she would agree to her son going to jail, she
promptly replied: “I have entrusted my son to you”. She was
old and infirm and yet she cheerfully told her son: “I won’t die
till you return”.

Indian interest in the London talks had reached the
vanishing-point when the third and last Round Table Conference
assembled there on November 17, 1932. The session was brief
and ended on December 24. Its poor credibility was further
eroded by the absence from the Conference Table of the Indian
National Congress and the British Labour Party. The decisions
taken at the three Round Table Conferences were summarised
and published as White Paper on March 15, 1933. A powerful

K. M. Munshi

team of no-changers, drawn from both Houses of British
Parliament and led by Lord Linlithgow, the future Viceroy of
India, was detailed to institute a searching scrutiny into the
provisions of the White Paper and to tighten up the loose ends
that might have been inadvertently left in the document by way
of concessions to India. The Joint Parliamentary Committee, as
it was called, was indeed a redundant body because by then the
Tories had come into power. Twenty-seven persons from
British and Princely India were associated with the Joint
Committee as assessors whose views were heard but ignored.
The Committee declared pontifically that “responsible government
is not an automatic device which can be manufactured to
specification. It is not even a machine which will mn on motive-
power of its own”.

The Government of India Act, 1935, Britain’s last essay
in constitution-making for this country, furnishes a conspicuous
example of a mountain labouring a mole. The Act was a
counterfeit of Dominion Status. Six out of the eleven provinces
were given bicameral legislatures, those of the rest being
unicameral. The Lothian Committee rejected the principle of
manhood suffrage and recommended the enfranchisement of
some 30 million people. The dual system of government,
popularised by Lionel Curtis and incorporated in the Act of
1919, was done away with, discretionary and overriding
powers of the Governor were, however, retained. The Ministers
could not claim the right to tender advice to him in the exercise
of his discretionary powers. It was perfectly open to him to
render the working of even such a gravely attenuated form of
provincial autonomy nugatory if he considered such a course of
action necessary.

The Centre was saddled with a unique form of federation,
the federating units being the eleven British Indian provinces and

Swaraj Without Substance

a medley of principalities, numbering some five hundred. In the
bicameral federal legislature, the States were given 125 seats in
the Lower House or one-third of its total strength and 104 seats
in the Upper House or two-fifth of its strength. The whole idea
behind the provision for the States’ accession to the federation
was, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, to give them a
decisive voice in the government and thus ensure the permanence
of the British Raj in this country. The principle of dyarchy or
divided responsibility was resurrected for the working of the
federal executive. Defence, external affairs and ecclesiastical
administration belonged to the exclusive jurisdiction of the
Governor-General. In addition, he was armed with discretionary
powers in order to fulfil his “special responsibilities”. His role as
the Grand Moghul of the British Raj in India remained
unaffected. And yet L.S. Amery, who became Secretary of
State for India in Churchill’s wartime Ministry, declared that this
thoroughly illiberal document represented “a remarkable feat of
constructive statesmanship”. In India, nearly every important
section of opinion categorically rejected the new statute.

Nevertheless, the Congress decided to enter the
constitutional arena to gain the two-fold objective of drawing
the maximum benefit from the provincial administration and of
combating the federal scheme. Munshi was in whole-hearted
agreement with this decision. He was firmly opposed to the
boycott of legislatures and was convinced that “training through
parliamentary or administrative work was as important in our
struggle for freedom as propaganda or constructive work
outside”. He saw no consistency in the Congress decision “to
combat the Act and the policy underlying it” and its willingness
to accept the responsibilities of government under its provisions.
He wrote: “In moments of action, the Congress had always
seesawed between high idealism and stem realism. And their
coordination had been possible only by the- marvellous powers

K. M. Munshi

which Gandhiji possessed of evolving formulas”. He believed
that, despite its limitations, the new constitution gave “considerable
powers to the ministries within the restricted provincial sphere”.*

Ministries could not be formed without fighting and winning
the elections, for which organisation was necessary. Munshi
decided to play an active role in reviving the Swaraj Party.
Immediately on his release from the Bijapur prison in Karnataka
in December 1933, he rushed to Madras where Mahatma
Gandhi had gone to apprise him of his views on office acceptance
and to win his consent for the move. While in Madras he was the
guest of Rangaswamy Ayyangar, the talented Editor of the
Swadesamitran and later of The Hindu. Ayyangar was in entire
agreement with his guest on the need for bringing the Swaraj
Party back to life. He had already taken certain steps in that
direction. After corresponding with Dr. B.C.Roy, the Bengal
leader who later became the Chief Minister of that State, he had
prepared a scheme providing for organised parliamentary
activities by those Congressmen who chose to pursue this course
of action. The guest and the host prepared another scheme and
submitted it to the Mahatma for his approval. Munshi emphasized
the need for such an activity if only to overcome the prevailing
atmosphere of frustration. Gandhi saw no objection to move and
told Munshi that he was free to sponsor it.

Both Munshi and Ayyangar thought that their cause would
receive the needed impetus if they could enlist the support of
Dr. M.A.Ansari, the widely respected nationalist Muslim leader.
Not only he, but Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Mrs. Sarojini
Naidu showed interest in it. Decision was taken to convene a
conference of like-minded Congressmen so that a regular
“council-entry” movement could be launched. The terrible Bihar

*7 Follow the Mahatma by K. M. Munshi, p. 144.

Swaraj Without Substance

earthquake on January 15, 1934 and the death of Ayyangar on
the 5th day of the following month did not augur well for the
project. But its champions were determined to see it through.
After a number of discussions and deliberations, including those
held in Dr. Ansari’s Delhi residence on March 31 and April 1,
the Swaraj Party was brought into existence again. At the Delhi
deliberations, Munshi suggested that the Mahatma's consent
should be obtained to their programme, that Dr. Ansari should
accept the Chairmanship of the new party and that Dr.
B.C.Roy, M.S.Aney, Bhulabhai Desai and others should give
their undivided attention to the propagation of the council entry
message. Dr.Roy regretted his inability to function outside his
province. At a convention of the Swaraj Party held at Ranchi in
April-May, 1934, Bhulabhai Desai moved a resolution rejecting
the White Paper and demanding the establishment of a
Constituent Assembly to frame a suitable constitution for the
country.* For all the trouble he took in seeking the revival of the
Swaraj Party, Munshi received only brickbats from some
Congressmen. He would have given up the effort as a
thanklessone were it not for the support of Mahatma Gandhi
and other friends.

The Congress contested the 1936 - 37 general elections
with such thoroughness that it won the admiration of all impartial
observers, including Sir Harry Haig, Governor
of the United Provinces from 1934 to 1939. Resident Congress
workers in nearly every village became active and carried the
message of their party to the humblest homestead. In
consequence, its electoral victory was overwhelming. Of the
1,585 seats, it won 71 1, which was acclaimed as an outstanding
feat. Even so, it was not in a hurry to seek office. It had long

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 33-41.

K. M. Munshi

been at war with the foreign Government whose bureaucracy
had come to look upon the white cap as the symbol of sedition.
Non-Congress elements, to whom cooperation with the
authorities was an article of faith, would feel cheated if they
were denied the loaves and fishes of office. The new
constitution gave only a modicum of authority to the popular
ministries and a hostile Governor could reduce even this to a
chimera. Acceptance of responsibility without power was,
therefore, considered as not only ridiculous but dangerous. The
Congress accordingly directed in March 1937 that ministerships
should not be accepted unless “the leader of the Congress party
in the legislature is satisfied and is able to state publicly that the
Governor will not use his special powers of interference or set
aside the advice of Ministers in regard to their constitutional
activities”.

By this demand the Congress certainly did not want the
Governors to be divested of the special powers statutorily
conferred on them, but it did desire that such powers should not
be used in order to thwart the initiative and enterprise of the
popular ministries. There was a good deal of discussion both in
India and in England about the legitimacy of Congress
stipulation. It was, however, belatedly realised that it was well
within its rights to seek such a guarantee. On June 17, 1937, the
required assurance was given by Neville Chamberlain, the
British Prime Minister. Five days later, on June 22, the Viceroy,
Lord Linlithgow, followed his example.* (Detailed reference to
these assurances will be made in a subsequent chapter). The
elucidation of the constitutional position by two such authorities
decided the Congress to accept the responsibilities of
government. In July, its ministries were formed in eight out of the

* Linlithgow's Speeches and Statements, Government of India, 1945,

p. 80.

Swaraj Without Substance

eleven British Indian provinces. All of them remained in office till
October 1939, when they resigned on the issue of Britain’s war
and peace aims with reference to Indian freedom.

Ministry-forming did not have smooth sailing in Bombay.
K. F. Nariman, President of the Bombay City Congress
Committee, was confident that he would be chosen as the
leader of the Congress Legislature Party, which would entitle
him to head the ministry in the province. His friend, Sir Cowasji
Jehangir, wielded much influence with the Governor, Lord
Braboume, which encouraged him into believing that he was
sure to be called. He had, however, antagonised the Congress
High Command by his dubious role during the 1934 elections to
the Central legislature when he abmptly withdrew his candidature,
thus contributing to the defeat of the substitute Congress
candidate. The choice of the leadership fell on B. G. Kher, a
solicitor by profession and a man of great simplicity and high
ideals. Munshi, who was also an aspirant for the premiership,
knew that his chances were slender. He was, however, happy
that the mantle fell on Kher, his friend from the time he joined
the Articled Clerks’ Association at the beginning of his legal
career. Kher was in those days Secretary to Justice Beaman
and had helped Munshi in every possible way in his profession.

Munshi was keen on having the portfolios of Law and
Education but was persuaded to take Home. The Ministry,
which was sworn into office on July 17, 1937, consisted of able
men. Munshi’s performance as Minister in Bombay and later at
the Centre in free India will be discussed in a subsequent
chapter. Despite many disadvantages, Congress Ministries in
most of the provinces gave a good account of themselves.
Apart from the fact that most of their members were men of
superior calibre and were inspired by a genuine spirit of service,
their doings were watched with the unsleeping eyes of argus by

K. M. Munshi

Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel. The elite of the bureaucracy, the Indian Civil Service
officers, behaved, in the words of Munshi with “meticulous
rectitude”. The Governor, Lord Brabourne, and his successor,
Sir Roger Lumley (later Lord Scarborough) were cooperative.
The constitution allowed the ministries little scope for launching
ambitious nation-building projects, but in the limited area that
was vouchsafed to them they were unhampered in the pursuit of
their activities.

There is an impartial testimony to the fact that in most of
the Congress provinces, the Ministers worked with great
earnestness. Two Governors, Lord Erskine and Sir Harry Haig,
were all praise for them. I offer no apology for quoting the latter
at some length. Sir Harry said: “To sum up my conclusions on
events and tendencies of such complexity and variety is perhaps
to risk misunderstanding owing to the necessary brevity of
expression. But if I am to take that risk I would say that the
experiment of introducing full democratic institutions among a
people who still instinctively, think in authoritarian terms, who
view the Government as somebody’s ‘Raj’, has been launched
with a success beyond expectation. Congress and the Services,
starting about as far apart as it was possible to be, learned to
work together. The Congress learned the stubborn facts of
administration. The Services learned the implications of
democratic control. The party, which had hitherto always been
in opposition, and often in extreme and even unconstitutional
opposition, to the Government, took over the reins of
government. The revolution in the ideas of the masses caused
by this change was kept, on the whole, within the bounds of

Swaraj Without Substance

safety. It is no mean achievement, and both the Congress and
the Services share in the. credit for this”.*

Jawaharlal Nehru, an impatient idealist and a severe critic
of the Act of 1935, was also impressed with the performance
of Congress Ministries. He wrote: “I was often critical of the
work of the Congress Governments and fretted at the slowness
of the progress made. But, looking back, I am surprised at their
achievements during a brief period of two years and a quarter,
despite the innumerable difficulties that surrounded them”. What
the fate and future of India would have been had the Congress
remained in office for a reasonably long period, it is impossible
to say. There is indeed no wisdom in speculating on the possible
and the contingent. Jinnah, whose frustration deepened with
years, soon got his opportunity to wage a war on the secular
and nationalist forces in the country. He had sworn implacable
hostility to Congress Ministries whose very success proved fatal
to India’s territorial integrity. Communalism in India came of age
during the- Second World War.

* Constitutional Proposals of the Sapru Committee, 1945, quoted
on page 28.

The Communal Canker

MUNSHI WROTE A GOOD DEAL on the Hindu-
Muslim question both before and after national
independence. He felt that a section of the Muslim community had
persuaded itself that it belonged to the “master race”. Centuries
ago, when Muslim power in this country had reached its height,
there were some rulers and members of their dependent
aristocracy who believed in the preposterous doctrine, but it was
shattered following the revival of Hindu supremacy. Indeed, the
martial races of India never accepted the hegemony of a religious
minority as a natural order of things. They fought back and
eventually brought to an end Muslim domination in most parts of
the country. The Vijayanagar Empire, which lasted from 1336 to
1565, commanded the allegiance of the entire South. Despite the
reverses to their arms at Panipat in 1761, the Marathas were in the
plenitude of their military power till the end of the eighteenth
century and were within an ace of winning continental sovereignty.
Sir Alfred Lyall, an authority on the British Indian period, wrote that
it was “fortunate for the English that they did not come into collision
with such antagonists until their own strength had matured, since
there can be no doubt that throughout the later stages of the
tournament for the prize of ascendancy between England and the
Native Powers, our most dangerous challengers were the
Marathas”*. The Sikhs in the Punjab, the heartland exemplary of

*The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominion in India by Sir
Alfred Lyall, John Murray, 1907, pp 136, 137.

The Communal Canker

present day Pakistan, the Rajputs in Rajasthan and the jats in
Central India had established their supremacy, leaving, only a few
pockets of Muslim rule in the country.

After the advent of Islam to India, the antagonism
between the two principal communities did not last indefinitely.
Even Mahumad of Ghazni, who invaded india seventeen times,
had three Hindu generals to assist him. Muhammad Ghori,
another man of the sword, imprinted the image of goddess
Lakshmi on his gold coins together with a legend in Sanskrit.
Some of the Sultans of Delhi were uninhibited sadists, but the
political, social and economic compulsions brought the two
communities closer together. The Sultans of Kashmir, Bengal
and of other parts of the country made no great distinction
between their own faith and Hinduism. For instance, Zainulabdin
of Kashmir often made a pilgrimage to Amamath and visited the
Sharada Devi temple. The eighteenth century ruler of Mysore,
Hyder Ali, made a public avowal that all religions proceeded
from God and that all were equal in the eyes of God. As a
British historian has pointed out, Hyder Ali’s veneration for the
great idol in the temple of Srirangapattana was as great as “for
all the Imams, with Mohammed at their head”. The respect
shown by the Hindu and Sikh rulers to Islam was exemplary.

Most of the promiment Muslim leaders who fought for
Pakistan were of Hindu extraction. While the ancestors of
Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, belonged to a Gujarati Hindu
family, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, acclaimed as the Poet of Islam,
was derived from the Kashmiri Pandit family of Saprus and was
close to Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, the Liberal statesman. Sir
Abdullah Haroon, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee
of the Muslim League, said on April 3, 1940, that Sir Sikander
Hyat Khan's forefathers were Rajputs, while he himself traced
his ancestry to a Lohana Hindu family. Sir Fazli Husain, who

K. M. Munshi

was supposed to resemble the Irish Parnell as a man of
determination, was the pillar of the Muslim League before
Jinnah’s unchallenged ascendancy. His family also once belonged
to the Hindu religion and was strongly influenced by its ancestral
faith in the ceremonies’ pertaining to birth and marriage. Except
in the mode of their worship, the two communities are thus
indistinguishable ethnically, culturally and linguistically.

Indeed, the interdependence between them was complete.
Muslim rulers could not sustain their sway without the military
support of the Hindu warlike communities. Nor was it possible
for them to run their civil administration without enlisting the
services of Hindu intellectual elite. The Kayasthas, the Khatris,
the Pandits of Kashmir, the Amils of Sind and a few other Hindu
castes became the mainstay of Muslim government. They learnt
Persian, the language of the rulers, and gaining mastery over it,
attained high positions in the bureaucracy. Some of Munshi ’s
own ancestors joined Muslim governments as civil servants. He
writes: “In the early decades of the 18th century, one of my
forefathers, who served in the Secretariat of the Moghul
Emperor of Delhi, was a Persian poet, presenting the Emperor
with a laudatory poem on the latter’s birthday. Another was the
head of the Secretariat of the Nawab of Broach in the latter half
of the 1 8th century. He has left behind a work containing an
autobiographical introduction and the copies of the letters he
had written to different rulers in India on behalf of his master in
impeccable Persian, prefacing it with a citation from the
Koran”.* Hindu rulers in their turn freely engaged the services
of Muslims as soldiers and civilian officials. This tradition
continued in the Princely India under the British paramountcy.
Sir Mirza M. Ismail served with distinction as the Dewan of the

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, foot n e p. 65.

The Communal Canker

premier State of Mysore and later in the same capacity in the
Rajput principality of Jaipur.

Without the knowledge of the two communities, the
parting of the ways, however, began after the great rebellion of
1857, in which both participated enthusiastically. To the British,
India was a pearl of inestimable price and it became the
inflexible resolution of their mling class not to lose it at all costs.
They encouraged the myth, so tenaciously cherished by some
sections of the Muslim community, that Muslims had been
India’s real rulers before the establishment of the Raj and that
they would be enslaved by their former subjects should the
foreign rule come to an end. They successfully practised the
doctrine of counterpoise by placating Muslim vested interests.
But British Machiavellism would not have succeeded if the
Muslim intellectual classes had appreciated, as their Hindu
counterparts had done, the formidable omens under which India
was moving under the British Raj. Apart from the fact that it
was against all reason to believe that the Raj would last for ever,
the introduction of government by laws and of free institutions,
the latter, however faltedngly, was of fateful significance Sooner
or later, foreign rule was bound to end, paving the way for the
establishment of a secular and democratic polity and thus
rendering religious affiliations largely irrelevant in the government
of the country. Such an enlightened view if the shape of things
to come would have been possible if the Muslim intellectual
classes had shown the same eagerness as the Hindus to take full
advantage of the British institutions in this country. The
introduction of English in March 1835, as the official language
of the country and the abolition of Persian in 1857, as the
language of the law courts was considered disastrous to the
Muslim community.

K. M. Munshi

In contrast, the adaptability of the Hindus was remarkable.
Moving with the times had become a way of life with their
intellectuals from a remote past. Begining with Raja Rammohan
Roy (1774-1833), the prophet of Indian nationalism and a
persevering champion of modernism, a succession of Hindu
social reformers and educationists laboured incessantly to
liberate their community from the trammels of backwardness.
More than'theirrulers,e.g they were most clamant in demanding
English schools so that they might learn the new language and
qualify for the administrative posts and for liberal professions.
While the Muslims complained that English was a difficult
language to learn, the Hindus took to it enthusiastically on the
ground that there was no vernacular for a truly cultivated
person.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-98) and Ameer Ali were
foremost among the Muslims in realising the value of education
for the advancement of their community. Ameer Ali, who rose
to the position of a High Court Judge in 1890, laboured hard
for Muslim regeneration, but in the public life he was
overshadowed by his contemporary. Ahmed Khan, who gave a
fateful turn to Indian Muslim history, was an official in the
Judicial Department of the East India Company and became a
favourite of the British for the services rendered by him to them
during the rebellion of 1857. In fact, the Mutiny discovered for
him his destiny as in the later period the Second World War did
likewise for Jinnah.

Firmly believing that education was the best antidote to
Muslim backwardness, Syed Ahmed Khan founded the Anglo-
Oriental College in 1875 which developed into a full-fledged
University in 1920 at Aligarh. He believed in Hindu-Muslim
unity and had many friends from the majority community. Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru’s grandfather was close to him. And yet this

The Communal Canker

great educationist and patriot, who could have gone down in
history as the Muslim Raja Rammohan Roy, staged the most
astonishing volte face. Loyalty to the British Raj was an article
of faith with him. In the evening of his life, he came increasingly
under the influence of the British Principal of the College,
Theodore Beck, who indoctrinated him with the idea that
representative institutions were foredoomed to failure in this
country. British bureaucrats also cleverly worked upon the mind
of the aged patriot. His long interview with Lord Dufferin, the
Viceroy, and the award of the K.C.S.I. title transformed him
into an entirely new person. He called the Congress a “stupid
agitation” and dismissed the Bengalis as unwarlike

The separatists did not allow the grass to grow under
their feet. When the question of introducing some changes in the
administration was under consideration, a deputation of influential
Muslims, led by the Aga Khan, waited on the Viceroy, Lord
Minto, on October I, 1906, to plead for preferential treatment
for their community. They told the Viceroy that representative
institutions were alien to Indian traditions and should not,
therefore, be introduced in this country. If, however, the
Government decided otherwise Muslim interests should be
safeguarded through representation by separate electorates.
Such representation should be “commensurate not merely with
their numerical strength but also with their political importance
and the value of the contribution which they made to the
defence of the Empire”. Minto, an old and indolent reactionary,
readily welcomed the deputationists’ suggestion for driving a
wedge between the two communities. He eagerly grasped the
opportunity to propound the thesis, so dear to imperialist hearts,
that Indians would never be fit to come into their own.

The separatists immediately felt the need for an organisation
to spearhead their movement for special privileges and

K. M. Munshi

accordingly brought into existence on December 30, 1906, the
Muslim League at Dacca. Appropriately, the Aga Khan became
its first President and held that office till 1912.

About the Muslim League, the observations of one of its
own shining lights ere conclusive; Choudhry Khaliquzzaman
writes: “The Muslim League was dominated by the titled gentry,
Nawabs, landlords and jee huzoors who were generally well-
meaning gentlemen, but wanted to serve the Muslim cause only
so far as it did not affect their position either socially or in
Government quarters”.*

Discerning Indians and even Government leaders
and official documents recognised that representation by
religion was a grave hindrance to the development of the self-
governing principles, but there was no powerful demand for its
rejection. The system achieved statutory status with its
incorporation in the Indian Councils Act of 1909 and figured
conspicuously in all the subsequent constitutional reforms.
Leaders like Tilak and Gokhale supported it in the belief that it
would encourage the Muslims to join the mainstream of national
life. It was the same untenable assumption which led to the
famous Congress-League agreement of December 1916, known
as the Lucknow Pact.

Mahatma Gandhi, who had made the promotion of Hindu-
Muslim unity one of his most cherished aims, took the lead in the
Khilafat movement which began in October 1919. He claimed
that Indian Muslim concern over the future of distant Turkey and
its effete Sultan gave “such an opportunity of unifying Hindus and
Muhammedans as would not arise in a hundred years”. The
Muslim intelligentsia, whose memories, to quote Professor

* Pathways to Pakistan by Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, Longmans,
1961, p. 137.

The Communal Canker

Coupland, “were more concerned with Islam than with India”,
were delighted at the Mahatma’s enthusiasm, although some of
the bigoted Mullahs wondered how a non-Muslim was entitled to
lead a basically religious movement. Not all Indians welcomed
Gandhi's movement which, besides being totally unrelated to
Indian interests, was demonstrably for a lost and discredited
cause. The Right Honourable V.S. Srinivasa Sastri feared that the
Mahatma’s campaign would “lead us into disaster”. Munshi has
recorded that Jinnah warned Gandhi against encouraging religion
fanaticism in the country. He held that the fate of Khalif and his
country was none of India’s concern.The Nizam of Hyderabad,
a consummate opportunist, banned the agitation in his State.
Nevertheless, the non-cooperation movement of 1920 aroused
much enthusiasm in the country. Munshi wrote: “Though we
stood apart, we could not help admire the spirit of defiance and
sacrifice which Gandhi ji had evoked”. But the cause, besides
being irrelevant, was unjust and was doomed to fail.

The Indian Khilafat movement collapsed under the weight
of its own futility. A large segment of the Muslim intelligentsia,
which had taken part in it, made haste to return to communal
politics, Maulana Mohammed Ali, whose Oxford education had
failed to secularise his outlook, saw no enormity in declaring:
“According to my creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen
Mussalman to be better than Mr. Gandhi”. Not long before, he
had acclaimed the Mahatma as one of the greatest men in the
world. During the agitation, he had behaved like a mad mullah.
Besides inviting the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India, he had
told his fanatical followers that they should leave this country if the
Khilafat question was not solved to their satisfaction. After the
Khilafat fiasco, another Maulana, Abdul Bari, issued a vaguely-
worded ukase called/am'tf, which incited some twenty thousand
illiterate Muslims to leave their hearths and homes in August 1920,
in order to settle down in Islamic paradise of Afghanistan. The

K. M. Munshi

Afghan authorities, however, pushed them back, with disastrous
consequences, the credulous hordes.

On the Malabar coast in the South, a reign of terror was
let loose in August 1921 by the local Muslim population known
as Moplas, who believed that the British Raj come to an end and
that they were now free to punish all those whom they regarded
as the “enemies of Islam”. Dr. Annie Besant wrote that they
“murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away
all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about a lakh
of people were driven from their homes with nothing but the
clothes they had on, stripped of everything”. She held the Khilafat
agitators responsible for the Mopla outrage. Communal violence
became more widespread and savage in the country. Swami
Shraddhanand, the great spiritual leader, educationist and social
reformer, who had preached the gospel of national unity from the
precincts of the historic Jama Masjid in Delhi, was done to death
on December 26, 1926, by a Muslim fanatic.

Munshi, along with many others, believed that the grim
situation in the county, resulting from the failure of the Khilafat
agitation, could have been somewhat retrieved if only Mahatma
Gandhi had responded to the Viceroy, Lord Reading’s offer of
political concessions in return for the withdrawal of the popular
movement during the Indian visit of the Prince of Wales in 1921.
In the prevailing temper of political India, the Prince’s visit was
not only untimely but imprudent.

Reading, a cunning and resourceful imperialist, hoped to
mollify Gandhi and thus ensure the success of the Prince’s visit to
India by making certain offers of political concession, conveyed
to the Mahatma through influential nationalists, including C.R.Das,
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
The first and the third-named leaders were then in prison. The
Viceroy promised to hold a Round Table Conference soon to

The Communal Canker

formulate a constitutional scheme for giving full autonomy to the
provinces and for introducing dyarchy at the Centre. Gandhi was
prepared to consider the proposal provided the Viceroy
committee himself to solve the Punjab and the Khilafat problems.
His counter-offer was rejected so that nothing came out of the
Viceregal move. It was later alleged that Gandhi was prompted
by “about half-a-dozen Maul vis” to turn down the offer.

There is, however, no doubt that his stand caused much
disappointment to many nationalist leaders. Munshi wrote:
“Speculation about what might have happened if Reading’s offer
had been accepted is valueless today. But it is impossible, as I
look back over the span of forty-five years, not to entertain the
feeling than had Gandhiji accepted Reading’s offer we might
having obtained Dominion Status before 1939 without having
had to partition India”.*

Muslim demands for preferential treatment were further
raised in March 1927 in the shape of “proposals”. Meanwhile,
the Secretary of State, Birkenhead’s challenge to Indians to
produce an agreed constitution stimulated new political activities
in the country. A committee, with Pandit Motilal Nehru as
Chairman, was appointed at an All-Parties Conference held in
May 1928, to draft a scheme for a self-governing India. The
committee conceded most of the Muslim demands except the
one pertaining to representation by religion.

According to Munshi, Jinnah was in a truculent mood
when the Nehru proposals were discussed. Jinnah insisted that
Muslims should have one-third representation at the Centre
besides the residuary powers being vested in the provinces.
Even more formidable was the opposition of the Aga Khan.

*Pilgrimange to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 23.

K. M. Munshi

When Gandhi attended the Second Round Table
Conference in London in September 1931, there was a
well-planned conspiracy among the Indian communalists and
British diehards at the Conference to defeat his mission. Hoare
conceded that Gandhi held, “one of the master keys to the
book of the constitution that we were trying to write and that
the Mahatma was most certainly “not the relentless and
scheming conspirator that many of my friends imagined”. And
yet the great leader was asked to perform the impossible feat
of coming to terms with the Aga Khan on the communal
question. Important observers noted that the carefully
hand-picked Muslim delegation at the Conference was
determined not to yield to nationalism. Professor Harold Laski,
who was actively associated with the deliberations, saw how
impossible it was to promote a modus vivendi with the Muslim
separatists. In his correspondence with justice Holmes of
America, he disclosed that on being asked to “bring the
Mohammedans to reason” he had their "leader here for hours
trying to find a basis for discussion”. But, continued this
perceptive and impartial man of learning, “it was like talking to
a wall. His religion was the ultimate truth, and he was never
even willing to find a plane of secular institutions which implied,
so to say, a non-theological society. It was like being taken
back into reformation times. The Professor found it impossible
to talk to men who believed themselves to have ultimate truth
in their possession”.* It is small wonder that Mahatma Gandhi
gained nothing from the Aga Khan and announced the failure of
the talks on October 8, 1931.

*Holmes-Laski Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes
and Harold J. Leaski, 1916-1935 edited by Mark De Wolfe, Harvard
university, 1953, pp. 1332, 1335, 1338.

The Communal Canker

The outcome of these sordid developments was the plea
to the British monkey to distribute butter “equitably” between
the two quarrelling Indian cats. The Prime Minister, Ramsay
MacDonald, was requested to prepare a scheme for the
composition of the new Indian legislature. Known as the
Communal Award, the scheme was published on Augest 4,
1932. The Award confirmed the widely-held belief that the
Indian separatists could always get more from the Raj than by
making common cause with the nationalists. Accepting the
disruptive principle of separate representation the Award
,divided the Indian electoral system into twelve mutually-
exclusive compartments, namely, the Hindus, the Muslims, the
Sikhs, the Anglo-Indians, the European community in India, the
Depressed Classes, the Indian Christians, Commerce and
Industry, landlords and the monied classes, Labour, University
graduates and women. The Award was a millstone around
India’s neck and, as impartial observers pointed out, exacerbated
communal feelings instead of calming them. It was a windfall for
dissident elements in the country.

As we saw in the last chapter, the Congress won a
resounding victory in the 1936-37 elections and formed its
ministries in most of the British Indian provinces in
July 1937 after receiving an assurance from the Viceroy that the
Governors would not use their special powers indiscriminately.
The party encountered difficulties in choosing Muslim ministers in
two provinces. In Bombay there was no elected Nationalist
Muslim, who could be selected for the office. When Jinnah and
Munshi were together in the Bar library of the Bombay High
Court, the former suggested that Congress and the Muslim
League should team up to run the provincial governments.
Munshi conveyed his proposal to the Mahatma and the Sardar.
Later when B. G. Kher and his colleagues took office, Sir
Cowasji Jehangir, an influential Liberal Parsi baronet, spoke to

K. M. Munshi

both the Sardar and Maulana Azad about Jinnah’s wishes. At that
time both these members of the Congress Parliamentary Board
were Munshi’ s guests at poona. Munshi has recorded that during
most of the discussions he and Kher were present. Jinnah
demanded that there should be two Muslims in the Bombay
Cabinet and that they should be his nominees. They would be
neither the members of the Congress nor would they be amenable
to its discipline. Munshi writes: “In effect, they would be at the
disposal of Jinnah to obstruct, defy or sabotage and, by using a
veto, blackmail the Congress into submission”. The Sardar and
the Maulana saw no wisdom in accepting such an imprudent
proposal. Eventually, an Ahmedabad lawyer, Mohamed Yasin
Nuri, an independent Muslim, was inducted into the Kher
Ministry. The other frustrated Muslim Independents made a
beeline to the Muslim League.* The United Provinces, now
known as Uttar Pradesh, imbroglio was, however, far more
serious and drove the iron into Jinnah’s soul.

The Muslim League was solely interested in spreading a
canard about the Congress ministries. There is conclusive
evidence to show that the ministries were animated not only by
a high sense of purpose but also of fairness in their dealings with
all sections of the population. In London, Sir Harry Haig, former
Governor of the United Provinces, stated at a meeting presided
over by Sir O’Neil, Under Secretary of State for India, that “in
dealing with questions raising communal issues, the Ministers, in
my judgment, normally acted with impartiality and a desire to do
what was fair”. The Times , not a friend of the Congress,
conceded that the Congress ministries were “well-disposed to
the Muslim community”. Professor Coupland dismissed the
League’s charges as either “exaggerated or of little serious
moment”. Maulana Azad, who played a leading part in the

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K.M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 47, 48.

The Communal Canker

formation of Congress ministries, reacted strongly against the
League’s propaganda. He said: “I can speak from personal
knowledge that these allegations were absolutely unfounded.
This was also the view held by the Viceroy and the Governors
of different provinces”. He added: “Every incident which
involved communal issues came up before me. From personal
knowledge and with a full sense of responsibility, I can therefore
say that the charges levelled by Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim
League with regard to injustice to Muslims and other minorities
were absolutely false”*. But truth, moderation and fair play
were a casualty in those days and in the subsequent years.

It was impossible to make Jinnah see reason. He was
bent upon coercing the Congress into conceding that he alone
was the leader of the Muslim League and that the League was
the sole representative of the Indian Muslim community. Like
other intelligent people, he knew that the World War would be
far more serious than its predecessor and that a hard-pressed
British Government would need Indian co-operation in the war
effort as never before. He was shrewd enough to realise that the
Congress would agree to help only if its plea for self-
government was not only heeded but effective steps were taken
in that direction. It was equally clear that the British would not
wind up their Raj in India of their own accord. An inestimable
opportunity would thus arise for him to assert his own
importance to secure official recognition that he was the sole
leader of the Muslim community. He could then use his negative
power to dictate his own terms both to the Government and the
Congress. The resignation of Congress ministries in October
1939 in protest against Whitehall's obstinacy on the issue of
Indian freedom transformed what would only have been
Jinnah’s day dreams into realisable goals.

*India Wins Freedom by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, pp. 21, 22.

VII

The War

MUNSHI WAS A STAUNCH Congressman. Although on
occasions he separated himself from it, his loyalty to the
organisation and its great leader, Mahatma Gandhi, was
absolute. He had, however, certain convictions which he was
not prepared to forsake for any reason. On the issue of
constitutional reforms he was essentially a responsive cooperator.
As a constitutional expert and a keen student of affairs, he
knew, like any other knowledgeable person, all about the
limitations of the Government of India Act, 1935. At the same
time, he saw in the statute, as not many others had done, the
seeds of progress which he was loath to abandon. He strongly
felt on the issue of office acceptance since it provided an
inestimable opportunity for the nationalists to widen the scope
of the Act and thus shorten the distance for the country to reach
Dominion Status which, as all discerning persons conceded,
was equal to the status of Britain herself. Munshi also felt that
only by accepting the responsibilities of government, the
Congress would be able to hold in check communal, extremism.
Taking this view of the Indian situation, he welcomed the
Congress acceptance of office in 1937 as the highest act of
statesmanship. Even an impatient idealist and a strong critic of
the Act of 1935, Jawaharlal Nehru, acclaimed the experiment
as a success.

The outbreak of the second World War in September
1939 was a momentous event to the entire mankind. It was

The War

global in its range and total in its destructive potency. Not much
perception was necessary to realise that the War would bomb
the status quo out of existence. It was, therefore, futile to
expect that the British Empire would remain unscathed at the
end of the Titanic conflict. Aldous Huxley wrote that modem
wars had the potency of shaking the “whole fabric of custom of
law, of mutual confidence, of decency and humanity”. Centuries
ago, Burke made the pregnant remark that “war never leaves
where it found a nation”. It was clear that the post-war world
would witness revolutionary changes and thinking men, especially
in Britain and America, embarked upon a prolonged debate on
how best those changes could be harnessed to the lasting good
of mankind. Leaders of thought like Bernard Russell and H. G.
Wells looked upon the war as crisis of civilization and drew up
blue-prints for a bold re-organisation of human affairs on a just
and equitable basis. Some of them asked for action in that
direction even when the cannons were roaring. Professor
Harold Laski, for instance, maintained, that “in war, the deed is
the word”. In America, informed opinion had long been in
favour of British withdrawal from India. Its leaders felt that the
War provided an inestimable opportunity for Whitehall to take
significant steps in that direction.

Those British mlers, who had succumbed to the seductions
of imperial glory, were, however, not prepared to take such a'
realistic view of the situation. The Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow,
was an ardent imperialist. He knew that the British Empire
would not survive the impact of the war but refused to take any

K. M. Munshi

forward steps towards constitutional reform unless the nationalists
gave their ungrudging support to the war effort.*

The Congress had good reason to be sceptical about the
Viceroy’s intentions towards India. In the name of consulting
representative opinion, he started meeting all and sundry —
Shefley’s “illustrious obscure” — who could be tmsted to present
the most conflicting points of view. Nor was the Government
prepared to give up its trump card, namely, the minorities. The
Viceroy's statement of October 18, 1939, told the Indian
people that “representatives of the minorities have urged most
strongly on me the necessity of a clear assurance that full weight
would be given to their views and to their interests in any
modifications that may be contemplated”. He was definite that
unless “all parties and all interests in the country” asked with
one voice for political concessions, there would be none. So
much concerning the future. About the present, it would be
possible to establish a consultative group, “representative of all
major political parties in British India and of the Indian Princes”,
with a view to associating public opinion “with the conduct of
the war and with questions relating to war activities”. There was
no talk of relaxing bureaucratic absolutism by taking Indians as
partners at the Centre in the government of the country.

The Congress was furious. Deliberating for two days on
the political situation, its executive registered on October 22-
23, an emphatic protest against the Viceroy’s offer. Its
resolution said: “What the Committee had asked for was a

*The Viceroy said: “English is making a colossal effort to win the war
and at the end of the war, as on the last occasion, it be exhausted.
At that time there will be a tendency to liberalise the institutions of
the Empire. India should not then be found unprepared and
disunited”. Munshi’s Note on his interview with the Viceroy on
January 12, 1940, Pilgrimage to Freedom, Volume I, p. 391.

The War

declaration of war aims as a test of Britain’s bona fides
regarding India, irrespective of the attitude of opposing parties
and groups”. It reminded the authorities that the political
freedom the Congress was asking for was not for its own
advantage but for the benefit of all sections of the population.
The emptiness of the October announcement drove the
Congress to withhold its suppor to the Government in its war
effort since cooperation under such conditions “would amount
to an endorsement of the imperialist policy which the Congress
has always sought to end” As a first' step in that direction, the
Congress asked its ministries to resign. Its decision to vacate
office in October 1939 and its refusal to go back to it till 1946
was of fateful significance since it gave a new and disastrous
turn to the course of the country’s history.

Linlithgow now turned to Jinnah, who at that time did not
count for much either in Muslim or national politics. He was
nursing deep resentment against the Congress in general and
against Gandhi in particular for his own failure to be in the front
rank of national leadership. The war became a God-send to
him. He knew that on the issue of Britain’s war and peace aims,
the Congress would go into political wilderness, compelling the
Viceroy to court him. He would then be able, not only to
rehabilitate himself as an indispensable leader but also to wreak
his vengeance on his Congress adversaries by holding up all
constructive constitutional talks. As the first step in that
direction, he ordered his party to celebrate December 22,
1939, as the Deliverance Day to mark Muslim “emancipation”
from the “tyranical” Congress governments. He answered in the
negative when confronted with the question whether he intended
to champion the cause of other minorities. He admitted that the
Sikhs and the Depressed Classes were on the side of the

K. M. Munshi

majority community. A sizable section of enlightened Muslim
opinion was also patriotic and forward-looking, but it did not
suit either Jinnah or the Viceroy to acknowledge this fact.

The growing amity between the Viceroy and the League
leader provided a strong incentive to the latter to persuade his
party to adopt the famous partition resolution of March 1940.
It was a dangerous resolution which sought to destroy all the
good work the British had done to consolidate the territorial
integrity of the country and to promote its administrative unity.
India was thus exposed to an unprecedented risk of truncation.
As the premier national organisation, the choice before the
Congress in these circumstances was clear. It could not, of
course, retrace its steps on the issue of national freedom, but
efforts to preserve the country’s territorial unity deserved
absolute priority. It could hope to protect India’s oneness only
by cooperating with the Government and by re-occupying
ministerial positions in the provinces. It was clear that the
Churchill government would not prevent the Congress from
seeking to nullify the partition resolution. Freedom would not
come to her during war time but was no longer in Whitehall’s
power to withhold it as part of post-war settlement.

That was an agonising time for Munshi. He was both
intellectually and emotionally attached to India as an indivisible
land of his ancestors. In his literary creations he had put her on
the highest pedestal among the nations of the world, recalling
her inestimable services in the cause of human enlightenment.
Even a foreign politician like Ramsay MacDonald had written
enthusiastically about India’s unity. He held that from the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from the Bay of Bengal to
Bombay, the country was “naturally the area of a single
government”. He further observed: “Political and religious

The War

tradition has also welded it into one Indian consciousness. Even
those masses, who are not aware of this, offer up prayers which
proclaim it and go on pilgrimages which assume it”. Munshi,
whose knowledge of India’s ancient lore was profound, felt the
prospect of her dismemberment with the intensity of a personal
bereavement. He decided to fight against it as best he could.

He was convinced that the “creed of disruption” had so
far thriven on appeasement and he accordingly appealed to his
countrymen to unite in order to defeat the Muslim League’s
separatist politics. He invented the famous expression Akhand
Hindustan or undivided India and sought to popularise the
concept of the country’s indivisibility by speaking about it over
the length and breadth of the country. Akhand Hindustan, he
asserted, “is a living reality which no man in his senses dare trifle
with”. Nature and man had preserved the country as an
indivisible entity and it was the heritage duty of every Indian to
protect and transmit this great heritage to posterity. He wrote:
“From Amarnath to Rameshwaram, from Dwaraka to Kalighat,
the land is one and indivisible. It is sanctified by the sacrifices
of Indians of thirty centuries. It is the shrine at which our gods
and fathers have worshipped. It is the hope of India’s sons, it
will remain such till the end of time. Its inviolability is the first
article of their faith here, their salvation hereafter. Whoever
seeks to part what has thus been joined will have to walk over
the dead bodies of millions of Indians. And even then, India will
remain indivisible”.* Such was the intensity of his feeling on the
issue of India’s partition.

At the same time, Munshi endeavoured to persuade the
authorities to realise the error of their ways. When he met
Linlithgow on January 12, 1940, to present his views on the

* Akhand Hindustan by K. M. Munshi, New Book Co., 1942, p. 23.

K. M. Munshi

Indian situation and to ascertain the Viceroy’s reactions to them,
the latter had suggested to him that he should present his case
before Sir Roger Lumley, Governor of Bombay. He accordingly
prepared a comprehensive document and sent it to the Governor
on June 8. Besides deploring the lack of imagination in Britain’s
India policy, he regretted the authorities' distrust of the Congress
in the mistaken belief that it was opposed to British interests. It
was not right to placate the Princely Order, the champion of the
status quo. Muslim reactionaries were being encouraged to
arrest india's progress towards freedom. States like the Nizam's
Hyderabad were “financing and influencing” the separatist
tendencies among the Muslims. Stalwarts like Sir Mohammad
Zafrulla Khan and Sir Sikander Hyat Khan were being ignored.
“Mr. Jinnah”, Munshi wrote, “in spite of his cryptic utterances as
regards the British rule, is unfriendly and his two-nation theory is
as much a counterblast to British-imposed unity in India as to the
national unity which Congress covets”.

Pleading for a reversal of the reactionary British policy
towards India, he emphasised the need for setting up a national
government in the best interests of both the countries. He wrote:
“In the end I may once again urge that setting up a strong National
Government at the Centre is today neither a matter of convenience
nor of fair-play as it was before May 10, 1940. It is a matter of
extreme importance, both for Britain and India, of life and death
urgency to the maintenance of the British influence in Asia and to
the stabilisation of the East. It has to be achieved, if necessary,
against the unimaginative traditions of ponderous statesmanship
with which India has been familiar in the past”.*

Munshi had no illusions that his presentation of the facts
about the Indian situation would yield the desired results. He

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K.M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 394, 402.

The War

was on friendly terms with the Aga Khan who pressed him to
meet Jinnah and himself arranged for the two to come together.
Much water had flowed under the bridges since the two
men had worked together for their motherland’s liberation under
the banner of the Home Rule League. Jinnah had now become
an entirely changed person and believed that he was the
prophet of partition. In March 1940 he made the candid
admission that the war and the Viceroy had pushed him up to
the pinnacle of leadership.

So the meeting between Munshi and Jinnah on June 23,
1940 could not be fruitful. They could converse in Gujarati, the
mother tongue of both, but the political idiom of the two was
entirely different. While the one was a passionate believer in
Akhand Hindustan, the other was equally convinced that only
by its dismemberment could there be peace and settlement.
Jinnah’s initial cordiality towards his former colleague disappeared
the moment he began to vindicate his political volte face.
Arguing that partition alone would solve the Indian question, he
maintained, like the British diehards, that the concept of Indian
nationhood was a myth. Even under an extreme form of federal
government, with the provinces enjoying complete autonomy,
the Centre was bound to be dominated by the Hindus. In the
matter of Defence, the relative representation of the two
communities in the armed forces would provoke a conflict. The
Princely States should be left alone. Once the sub-continent
became self-governing, the British Government would not be
able to retain its hold on the Princes whose principalities could
either be absorbed or allowed to continue if they were large
enough to sustain their own governments. Jinnah rejected
Munshi’s apprehension that any division of India on religious
grounds would only worsen the relations between the two

K. M. Munshi

communities, leading to their permanent estrangement and to a
perpetual conflict, between the two independent countries.

It was perhaps his former friendship for Munshi which
prompted Jinnah to complain that Mahatma Gandhi had
“broken off negotiations” with him in the previous December
and never cared to renew them, although he, the Mahatma, was
prepared to meet the Viceroy any number of times. He asked:
“Why should then Jinnah be treated as an untouchable? Merely
because he holds the opinion that the Congress Governments
had not treated minorities fairly”. Even if it was thought that he
had committed the mistake of celebrating the anti-Congress day
“that is no reason they should shun me”.* Jinnah’ was a strange
grievances. He did not believe in the decencies and the
established norms of public debate. No person, except himself,
was of eminence in his eyes.

The Viceroy’s declaration of August 8, 1940, promising
Dominion Status to India on an unspecified date infuriated the
Congress which launched “individual satyagraha” as a protest
against British intransigence on the issue of the country’s
independence. On October 17, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, the
future Bhoodan leader and a staunch Gandhian, made an anti¬
war speech which ended in his arrest four days later. On
October 3 1 , Nehru was arrested and was vindictively awarded
sixteen months’ imprisonment. The self-exile of Congress
leaders delighted the communalists who made no bones about
inciting their fanatical co-religionists to violence. Cities like
Dacca, Ahmedabad and Bombay were convulsed with
communal clashes, the outbreak in the last-named city being
noteworthy for its unbridled savagery. Bombay, it must be

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 402-403.

The War

remembered, was the home town of the future founder of
Pakistan.

Munshi noted that the aim of the new type of frenzy was
to terrorise the majority community into acquiescing in the
division of the country. He wrote: “Against this mounting
onslaught of communal frenzy in the country directed towards
the Hindus, the Congress, under Gandhiji’s leadership, could
offer no protection, much less resistance. I boiled with rage at
our impotence”.*

The growing turbulence of the Muslim League forced
Munshi to give serious thought to the whole concept of non¬
violence, the sheet-anchor of Gandhian philosophy.
He had the greatest respect for Mahatma Gandhi.
He wrote: “Every man who has met Gandhiji has felt that there
is something nobler, greater in the man than in anything that he
says or does. Every time I meet him, I find that he is bigger than
his biggest deeds”. Even so, he found that it was impossible for
him to owe absolute allegiance to the doctrine of non-violence,
especially when violence and hatred were rife in the country. It
was indeed impossible for him to abjure the use of force for
self-defence. He maintained that resistance was the essence of
individual and corporate growth. “If one did not resist,” he
wrote, “one would become worse than a weed”. He was,
however, not alone in holding such views. Leaders like Motilal
Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, C.R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Maulana
Azad and Acharya Kriplani saw the obvious limitations of non¬
violence and refused to accept it as an immutable dogma.

Munshi’ s Akhand Hindustan or United India front would
have won popularity and would probably have developed into

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume 1, p. 75.

K. M. Munshi

a movement if the Mahatma had allowed him to go his own
way. Sir Mirza Ismail, the popular Dewan of Mysore, who
declined to walk into Jinnah’s parlour, suggested to Munshi to
replace the Sanskrit word “Akhand” by a suitable Urdu
equivalent. While he was thus engaged in mobilising public
opinion against communal politics, Mahadev Desai, Mahatma
Gandhi’s Secretary, issued a clarification which had a dampening
effect on Munshi ’s movement. Desai said that Munshi had left
the Congress because he had no faith in non-violence. Those
Congressmen who had faith in non-violence, but found it
impossible to implement it, should not leave the party. Munshi
writes: “Suddenly, those who had promised to come out with
me, accepted this explanation and stayed with the Congress.
That is how I began my lone campaign for Akhand Hindustan”.
The political deadlock in the country deeply distressed all
patriotic and right thinking Indians. Non-party leaders,
distinguished for their intellectual abilities and devotion to their
motherland, met in Bombay in March 1941 under the
presidentship of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and put forward an
eminently reasonable proposal to end the political stalemate, but
it was unceremoniously rejected by L. S. Amery, Secretary of
State for India. Mighty events in the Far East, leading to
spectacular victories by Japanese over the Allied forces,
compelled Whitehall to make a gesture of conciliation to India.
Sir Stafford Crisps, Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House
of Commons, arrived in India on March 22, 1942, with British
proposals to settle the Indian political question. Cripps was
known as India’s friend and well-wisher.

The British proposals, published on March 30, envisaged
the elevation of India to the status of a Dominion and provided
for the creation of a Constituent Assembly immediately after the
war for framing a Dominion Constitution. Representatives of

The War

Princely States would be entitled to participate in the deliberations
of the constitution-making body. At the same time, every
province would be at liberty not to accept the constitution,
although the door could be kept open for its admission if it
chose to come in later. The non-acceding provinces could frame
their own instrument of government and secure for themselves
the same status as the Indian Dominion. Like the provinces, the
five hundred odd States could also decide to cherish their so-
called independence in isolation. It would, however, be
necessary to negotiate a revision of their treaties “so far as may
be required in the new situation”. All these arrangements were
to take effect only after the war. Clearly, the aim of the British
scheme was not merely to satisfy nationalist opinion but also to
conciliate the communalists and the conservative Princely
Order. As Nehru put it, “the whole background would be of
separatism and the real problems of the country, economic or
political, would take secondary place”.*

Nevertheless, the Congress entered into long drawn out
negotiations with Cripps in the hope that a workable basis could
be found for its resumption of the responsibilities of government.
The points at issue were mainly two, namely, the extent to which
the British Government was prepared to transfer the responsibility
for the defence of India to an Indian member of the Viceroy’s
Executive Council. Secondly it wanted to know whether the
Indianised Viceroy’s Executive Council would be permitted to
function like a full-fledged cabinet with the Governor-General
strictly playing the part of a constitutional head. Cripps at first
stated emphatically that “power would rest with the Council as it
rests with the British Cabinet”. It was further contemplated to do

*The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru, Signet Press, 1946,
p. 550.

100

K. M. Munshi

with the India Office in London from where the affairs of this
country were being rigidly controlled. These heart warming
assurances were given by the British Minister on March 29, but
later be withdrew them under pressure from Whitehall.

Lord Listowell, the last Secretary of State for India
writes: “I was disillusioned to find that the Labour representatives
on the (India) Committee were so subservient to Churchill and
that Attlee, as Chairman was never more than a muted echo of
his master’s voice”. He adds: “Of they wanted to prevent the
break up of the Coalition ment while the war was on, and what
else mattered when our survival was at stake ?”* * Lord Wavell
recorded in his Diary on July 27, 1943, thus: “He (PM) hates and
everything to do with it, and as Amery said in a he pushed across
to me, ‘knows as much of the Indian blem as George III did of
the American colonies?” Any thought of freeing India drove this
high priest of B imperialism into mad fury. Anthony Eden wrote
thus his Memoirs: “Churchill said : ‘What a calamity it would be
to win the war and lose India’”.* The Cripps Mission was thus
foredoomed to failure. President Roosevelt was unconvinced by
the British Government’s explanation for its failure. The President
told Churchill that a settlement with India was still possible.#

The Congress had good reason to be dissatisfied with the
British proposals but it should have accepted them for what they

* The Whitehall Dimension of the Transfer of Power by Listowell
(Indo-British Review), Volume VII, Numbers 3 & 4 At the time this article
was written, the author was survivor of those Ministers who served on
the India of both the Churchill and Attlee Governments.

#Wavel: The Viceroy's Journal edited by Penderel Moon, p. 12

*The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Avon, The Eden Memoirs: The Reekoning,
Cassell, p. 383.

# Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood, A Bantom Giant, 1950,
pp. 108-109.

The War

101

were worth by taking into consideration the prevailing situation in
the country. Not all the Congressmen favoured the rejection of
the British offer. C. Rajagopalachari advocated its acceptance.
From the time the Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese
in December 1941 , Munshi persistently pleaded for co-operating
with the British in facing the new menace. In several statements
in January 1942, he appealed for the combination of all parties in
“a Government with plenary power at the Centre”. He pointed
out that India preferred Britain, a European Power, to Japan, an
Asian country, because it saw “in Britain’s victory alone the
possibility of an honoured place for India in an international
committee of free nations”. He strongly advocated the acceptance
of the Cripps offer and presented his point of view at length
before Mahatma Gandhi. “I made no impression on him”, Munshi
wrote, “Gandhiji was slowly moving towards the mahatmatic
stand of the apostle of non-violence and would not think of
participation in the war.**

The “Quit India” movement launched by the Congress in
August 1942 under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership proved
disastrous to India’s immemoral integrity. It cemented the
alliance between the bureaucrats and the communalists. It was
the twilight of the Raj and even hardened imperialists like
Linlithgow and Reginald Maxwell — the latter called the Congress
the “enemy” — were convinced that the fate of their empire in
India was sealed. Since they were going, it mattered little to
them what happened to this country after they left. They
decided to win the gratitude of the communalists by giving
support to their secessionist movement Jinnah and his men thus
became the greatest beneficiaries of the August campaign. It
was a busy time for Munshi. The Government promulgated a

** Pilgrimage to Freedom by K.M. Munshi, Volume 1, pp. 78-79.

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K. M. Munshi

number of ordinances to suppress the popular uprising and to
hold nationalist India in duress. Civil liberties were assailed and
large number of arrested persons were denied the right of
presenting habeas corpus writ petitions. Gathering around him
a band of competent young lawyers, Munshi moved up and
down the country defending the innocent persons. As we saw
in chapter Three, he conducted, in the words of Justice J. N.
Shelat, “a veritable crusade in defence of personal liberty and
political rights”.

The Partition

(i) Gandhi-Jinnah Talks

T'HERE WAS COUNTRYWIDE opposition to the plan
for dividing India but it was never organised into a decisive
movement. The Congress concentrated its efforts more on
wresting power from the British than on devising measures to
counter the Muslim League’s separatist propaganda. The Hindu
Mahasabha, the Nationalist Muslims, the Sikhs, the Liberals
and several others expressed themselves strongly in favour of
preserving India’s geographical unity, but theirs was a voice in
the wilderness. Munshi had thus to contend with tremendous
difficulties when campaigning for Akhand Hindustan, but he
never wavered in his resolve to save the country from the grim
prospect of vivisection. He met a number of non-Muslim
League leaders during his tour of the country and addressed
many meetings to convey the message of India’s immemorial
territorial integrity. He explained: “Akhand Hindustan is not a
political question nor is it a religious one. The unity and integrity
of India is a vital necessity for the existence of all communities
in this country”.

Munshi was heartened by the evidence that the saner
elements in the country belonging to all religions and regions
were opposed to its division. During his visit to Ludhiana in the
Punjab he spent a day with the scholarly Muslim, Mufti Moulvi
Mahomed Naeem, who combined piety with learning. The

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Mufti told Munshi that patriotism ran in the veins of the
members of his family. “My father”, he said, “a great Moulvi,
was a Congressman. He was one of the Ulemas who laid
down, first in 1885, th c fatwa that a Muslim can join the
Congress and work out national redemption for India. I intend
to die one day as a Congressman”. Taking Munshi with him to
a nearby place, he addressed a public meeting when he said: “I
am an Indian. I am a Mussalman. I cannot be asked to choose
between the one or the other. Both have brought me into
existence, and my loyalty to each is the source of my strength
serving for both”.*

Munshi also met a number of other leaders. When he was
in Delhi, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee called on him and told
him about the talks he had with Jinnah. The latter had told him
that the Muslim League would support the demand for national
freedom if the Hindus agreed to the partition of India in
principle. Jinnah, however, insisted that his promise should be
kept a close secret. Dr. Mookerjee was too seasoned a
politician to walk into his trap. Apart from the fact that it was
impossible for the Hindus to agree to India’s division, Jinnah’s
plea for secrecy was of great significance. He knew that his
influence with the government would collapse like a house of
cards the moment he chose to make common cause with the
nationalists. He was only making an adroit move to win Hindu
approval to his separatist politics. In response to Savarkar’s
invitation, Munshi addressed the Working Committee of the
Hindu Mahasabha. He told that body that the communal riots
provoked by the Muslim League to coerce the majority
community into agreeing to India’s partition could be stopped
only by organising an effective resistance which, he said, the

* Akhand Hindustan by K. M. Munshi, pp. 86, 87.

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Congress, under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, would not do.
A leader with a command over the mass mind alone could
transform such resistance into an irresistible movement. No such
leadership, he pointed out, was in sight.*

To rouse the civilized conscience of the world on India’s
continued subjection, Mahatma Gandhi went on a fast for
twenty-one days from February 10, 1943. He was then
seventy-three years old and there was a wide feeling that his
feeble body would not survive the ordeal. Nine days after he
had begun the fast, an All-Party Leaders’ Conference pleaded
with the Government to set the Mahatma free. In protest against
the Government’s obstinacy, three members of the Viceroy’s
Executive Council, namely, M. S. Aney, Sir Homi Mody and
Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, resigned from their office. Much to the
consternation of the imperialists, the Mahatma emerged unscathed
from his terrible experience. In his report to President
Roosevelt, William Phillips, the President’s personal representative
in India, presented a true picture of the state of India at that
time. He saw “inertia, prostration, divided counsels and
helplessness, with growing distrust and dislike for the British,
and disappointment and disillusion with regard to Americans”.

On March 3, 1943, some of the leaders met in Bombay to
take stock of the situation. They included, Sir Tej Bahadur
Sapru, M. R. Jayakar, C. Rajagopalachari, M. S. Aney and
Munshi. The last named leader was requested to arrange for a
full-fledged Conference of non-party leaders on March 9.
Invitations were sent out to some thirty-five persons who had
made their mark in various fields of national activity. After two
days’ deliberations, the assembled leaders resolved to request
the Viceroy to permit some of them to meet Mahatma Gandhi

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 84.

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K. M. Munshi

as a step towards promoting the much-needed reconciliation
between the Congress and the Government. Those who had
met the Mahatma earlier had come away with the impression
that he would gladly help in this process. Forwarding a copy of
the resolution to the Viceroy’s Secretary, Sir Glibert Laithwhite,
Sapru said that a delegation of four leaders, namely, C.
Rajagopalachari, G. D. Birla, Sir Ardeshir Dalai or Sir
Purshottamdas Thakurdas and K. M. Munshi would like to
meet the Viceroy. On receiving a favourable reply, Sapru asked
Munshi to prepare a memo- randum to be presented to the
Viceroy. Munshi’s professional commitments prevented him
from drafting the document at short notice. It was written by
Rajagopalachari and was duly approved.

At the outset, the Memorandum requested the Viceroy to
permit some of the non-party leaders to meet Mahatma Gandhi
“to ascertain authoritatively his reactions to the events which
have happened since his arrest and to explore with him avenues
for reconciliation”. If the Viceroy had any objections to their
interviewing Gandhi, he should state them so that they might
meet them. The members of the proposed delegation felt that
the Mahatma had already expressed his disapproval of violence
and sabotage. They were convinced that he would “cast his
influence on the side of internal harmony and reconciliation”.
The Mahatma’s good offices and guidance were necessary in
resolving the various issues, including the Hindu-Muslim problem.
If, by ignoring these facts, the Viceroy did not see his way to
allow them to interview Gandhi, his refusal would be construed
as “a determination on the part of Great Britain that there should
be no attempt at a settlement of the problem and no
reconciliation, between Nationalist India and Britain”. The
eminent leaders’ plea fell on deaf ears.

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107

When Linlithgow laid down his office on October 20,1943,
none felt more relieved than the nationalists. Nehru described
him as a man with all the failings of an old-fashioned British
aristocrat. The verdict of Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, the much-
esteemed liberal statesman, on the outgoing Viceroy was
conclusive. He said: “Today, I say, after seven years of Lord
Linlithgow’s administration, the country is much more divided
than it was when he came here”. Churchill was faced with the
problem of finding out a suitable incumbent to the vacant
Viceroyalty. He wanted a man in New Delhi who would obey
Whitehall’s directives both in the letter and in the spirit.
For sometime he toyed with the idea of sending out to India his
most trusted junior colleague, Anthony Eden, saying that he
alone could protect the glittering Indian jewel in the diadem of
His Imperial Majesty. With Eden declining the offer with
thanks, the Prime Minister overcame his dilemma by selecting
General Wavell, former Commander-in-Chief of India, as
Linlithgow’s successor. Wavell was a great soldier with a touch
of martial genius. He was well-disposed towards India but
was helpless.

While the imperialists and the communalists were busy with
their conspiracy, the miseries of the Mahatma under detention
were mounting. Soon after his arrest in August 1942, his trusted
Secretary, Mahadev Desai, who was perhaps far more devoted
to him than Boswell was to Johnson, passed away. Two years
later, on February 22, 1944, the Mahatma suffered another
grievous bereavement by the death of his wife, Kasturba, a
simple but lion-hearted woman who had been the staff of his life
from his early years. In April, he himself was laid up with a
severe malaria which made recovery most difficult. In these
circumstances, it was impossible for the Government to persist

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in holding him in duress. He was accordingly released
unconditionally on May 6 on medical grounds.*

Soon after his release Mahatma Gandhi asked Bhulabhai
Desai, V. F. Taraporewala and Munshi to examine the question
whether the authority conferred on him by the August 8, 1942,
resolution of the All-India Congress Commitee to “start a mass
struggle on non-violent lines” stilt subsisted, apart from the
legality or otherwise of the purpose for which the authority was
given. The three legal experts held that the authority given to the
Mahatma was intended to be exercised in the situation that
existed then. He was arrested and was thus prevented from
acting on the resolution. The experts concluded their note thus:
“The authority conferred upon him was neither permanent nor
recurring and there can be no question of its revival by the
recent release of Gandhi ji in the present situation”.

The Mahatma, whose health was shattered, was convalescing
at a nature cure clinic in Poona when Munshi met him. The latter
had received an urgent letter from Sir Bakshi Tekchand, former
Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court and leader of the Hindus
in that province, asking whether Gandhi had endorsed
C. Rajagopalachari’s formula for ending the estrangement
between the Congress and the Muslim League on India’s
constitutional future. Since the failure of the Cripps Mission, the
Southern leader had been giving much attention to the problem
of promoting a rapproachment between the two parties. He
evolved a formula and, after getting it approved by the
Congress members of the Madras Legislature, brought it before
the All India Congress Committee on April 29, 1942. It was

* Waved’ s Journal dated July 5, 1944, reads : “Winston sent me a
peevish telegram to ask why Gandhi hadn’t died yet!” (Wavell: The
Viceroy’s Diary edited by Penderel Moon, p. 78).

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109

rejected by that body. He was, however, not daunted by this
rebuff and continued to canvass support for his prescription.

Rajagopalachari met Gandhi in June 1943 and showed his
scheme to the Mahatma who was then detained in
the Aga Khan Palace at Poona. Rajagopalachari was Munshi’s
guest at that time and on his return gave his host “the rather
stunning information that Gandhiji had looked with favour upon
his formula of Partition”. Munshi drew up his own reactions to
the C.R. scheme in the form of a statement which he sent to
Gandhi for approval on the eve of the latter’s’ meeting with
Jinnah in September 1944. He pointed out that in the past the
slogan of Hindu-Muslim unity was invented to win Swaraj; it
was now being shouted to achieve independence and Pakistan.
“Experience”, he wrote, “has shown that concession wrung
alternately from the Nationalists and the British has been one
wave rolling after another towards a goal which is visible to all
except those who do not wish to see”. The champions of
separation would not be satisfied with the creation of a new
State based strictly on the Muslim majority areas. They would
demand lebensraum in the predominantly Hindu districts. He
could understand the Hindu and Muslim majority provinces
coming together under a federal system, the federating units
enjoying a considerable measure of autonomy, but a total
secession was unthinkable. The Princely States would not
endorse India’s partition.

Munshi’s statement called attention to lost opportunities. It
said: “We had ministries; we flung them away. We had the
certainty of federal unity under the Act of 1935; we spumed it.
We had the Cripps’ offer to fight our way to higher international
status shoulder to shoulder; we laughed at it”. It was no longer
easy to resist the two-nation theory. The Mahatma’s impending
meeting with Jinnah would strengthen that theory. Gandhi, the

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statement further said, had great faith in non-violence; he was a
miracle-maker who believed that he could avert the country’s
disruption. Munshi confessed that he lacked that faith. In
deference to the Mahatma’s wishes, he did not go to the press
to explain his opposition to the C.R formula. His statement
remained unpublished. Jinnah, who received the C.R. formula in
April, 1944, denounced it in unmeasured language.

Gandhi’s proposed talks with Jinnah in September 1944
created countrywide interest. Munshi received a number of
letters from many distinguished persons, expressing their
concern over the possible outcome of the Gandhi-Jinnah
meeting. Munshi wrote to the Mahatma apprising him of their
views and of his own apprehensions about the September
parleys. In his letter of August 9, he informed Gandhi that the
Punjab Premier, Sir Khizr Hyat Khan’s man met him to say that
no commitments should be made with Jinnah about that
province. He, the Premier, was not concerned with whatever
transelse Gandhi did. The Governor, Sir Bertrand Glancy, Sir
Mohammed Zafrullah Khan, later a Judge of the International
Court of Justice, and Sir Sultan Ahmed, Member of the
Viceroy’s Executive Council, were on Sir Khizr’s side. The
Hindu Minister of Punjab, Sir Chhoturam, and many of his co¬
religionists were profoundly disturbed over the new'
developments. The Sikhs were also perturbed and the Alkali
leader, Master Tara Singh, favoured Akhand Hindustan. Munshi
told the Mahatma that Jinnah was holding “several secret
negotiations”.

Munshi took the opportunity of reiterating his conviction
that India was indivisible. If, however, partition became
inevitable, only the areas having Muslim majority in India should
constitute themselves into separate units. In that event, the
separation of non-Muslim districts in the Punjab and Bengal

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111

would become inevitable. He was not sure whether the
Mahatma’s campaign for Hindu-Muslim unity, which had
yielded no results for twenty-five years, would now be
successful. Munshi wrote: “By supporting the Rajaji formula you
have been able to prove your readiness to arrive at a communal
settlement. Jinnah’s ambition of 25 years to determine the future
of India in partnership with you is fulfilled”. In a note dictated
to Munshi ’s son, Mahatma Gandhi said that the division of India
was like poison to him besides being sinful. He did not see
much wrong with the Rajagopalachari scheme. If there could be
a separate treaty on Defence, Foreign Affairs and
Communications, there was no harm in giving Jinnah the rest.
“After all this”, Gandhi said, “Pakistan seems to have no
meaning’’. He thought that Jinnah, despite his selfishness and
vanity, had complete faith in him. In addition to this note, Gandhi
wrote to Munshi on August 12, calling his attention to the fact
that he, the Mahatma, was the originator of the Congress
principle of self-determination. He said: “A believer in non¬
violence, I can maintain the unity of India only if
I accept the freedom of every part”. He, however, thought that
the Pakistan of Jinnah’s conception was sinful. Two days later,
Munshi conveyed to the Mahatma his conviction that his talks
with Jinnah would not be fruitful.

The much-awaited talks between the two leaders began at
the Bombay residence of Jinnah on September 9 and lasted for
eighteen days. Jinnah stated his thesis in this unbridled language:
“We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two
different nations by any definition or test ot a nation. We are a
nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language
and literature, art, architecture, names and nomenclature, sense
of value and proposition, legal laws and moral codes, Customes
and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions —

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in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life.
By all canons of international law we are a nation”. Gandhi
tersely dismissed this vehe-ment assertion with the remark: “I
find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their
descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent
stock”. If Jinnah had held the views he now so strongly
expressed twenty or thirty years before, it stands to reason that
he would not have risen to eminence either as a politician or as
a lawyer. He built up his practice and reputation as an advocate
almost entirely by handling cases involving the interpretation of
Hindu Law. His belated discovery that he belonged to a
different nation and that he was not an Indian at all could only
be attributed to hurt pride and overweening personal ambition.

The Gandhi-Jinnah talks failed. Thenceforward the Muslim
masses began to look upon Jinnah as their Messiah. Many
leaders deplored the Mahatma’s going to the implacable
opponent of Indian nationalism. Maulana Azad regretted his
calling Jinnah “Quid-i-Azam” or great leader. He was convinced
that Gandhi was wrong in opening correspondence with the
League leader and going to Bombay to meet him. Sardar Patel
was equally unhappy about it. Munshi was, of course, opposed
to the Gandhian move. He knew that Jinnah was “inflexible in
his objective”.

(ii) The Holocaust

At that time Jinnah had not yet reached the summit
of his negative power. His hold over the areas claimed as part
of Pakistan was still tenuous. It is true that he was popular
among the Muslims of the Hindu-majority provinces, but this
fact in no way advanced the cause of partition. Till Gandhi held
his September parleys with him, the concept of Pakistan mostly
figured in platform oratory, in poetic imagination and in ill-
informed and grossly partisan political literature. From then on,

The Partition

113

however, the situation began to change rapidly, making any
rational solution of the constitutional problem' almost impossible.
Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and his Liberal colleagues, however,
refused to surrender to despair. In October 1944, Sapru drew
Gandhi’s attention to the growing talk about the country drifting
towards a civil war. To avert such a tragedy, he and his
colleagues formed a Conciliation Committee in December to
recommend an equitable settlement of the political problem. The
Committee’s suggestion were most constructive but they were
rejected by Jinnah out of hand.

The Viceroy, Lord Wavell, was convinced that a prolonged
political stalemate would not do any good to India. He had
hoped that the Bombay talks between Gandhi and Jinnah would
yield some results. “The two great mountains”, he wrote, “have
met and not even a ridiculous mouse has emerged”. He waited
for the non-party leaders’ deliberations before making his own
move. Their denunciation by Jinnah and Amery rendered them
ineffective. At his instance, Bhulabhai Desai, leader of the
Congress Party in the Central Legislature, opened negotiations
with Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, Deputy Leader of the
Muslim League in that Legislature, to promote a political
understanding on the formation of an interim government. The
two leaders entered into a pact, according to which Jinnah and
Desai should be invited to form the government. Bhulabhai
Desai showed Munshi the draft agreement initiated by Liaqat Ali
Khan. Gandhi also saw it and “made a cryptic remark which
Bhulabhai construed as authorising him to go ahead”. Both
Jinnah and his lieutenant later disowned the agreement, the one
saying that he knew nothing about it and the other asserting that
whatever he had said about the move was based on his
“personal view”. Commenting on this episode, Munshi who, as
we saw in an earlier chapter, was close to Desai, wrote:
“Bhulabhai had a lively sense of his own in fallibility and a low

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opinion of most of the top Congress leaders. He was naturally
very anxious to solve the political impasse in the country and
walked into the trap laid by his friend, Liaqat All”. Desai failed
to take the precautions suggested by the Mahatma. The
omission angered Gandhi and Congress leadership and brought
about his political downfall. His name was not included in the list
of Congress members for the interim government suggested at
the Simla Conference of June 1945. In August both Bhulabhai
Desai and Munshi were staying at Birla House in New Delhi in
connection with the trial of the ex-members of the Indian
National Army at the Red Fort. Desai’ s defence of the I.N.A.
prisoners was superb and, as Munshi put it, “his reputation as
a lawyer rose sky-high”. But the brilliant lawyer and
parliamentarian was a dying man. In his last days, he bitterly
complained to Munshi that he had been betrayed. “Thus
ended”, writes Munshi, “the career of a man of unparalleled
intelligence and uncanny subtlety. I never could forget that I
learned the art of advocacy at his feet”.*

After consultations with the British Government, the
Viceroy announced on June 14, 1945, proposals for easing “the
present political situation and to advance India towards her goal
of full self-government”. The Wavell Plan, as it is called,
envisaged the complete Indianisation of the Viceroy’s Executive
Council except the office of the Viceroy himself and of the
Commander-in-Chief. The external affairs, so far held by the
Viceroy, would also be put in charge of an Indian member. The
changes would be within the framework of the Act of 1935 but
there would be a substantial devolution of authority to Indians.
As in the Dominions, a British High Commissioner would be
appointed to look after Britain’s commercial and other interests

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 95. Bhulabhai
Desai called him “Munshi Kaka”.

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115

in this country. If there was a favourable reception to the
proposals, democratic administration would be restored in the
former Congress provinces. A conference would be held at
Simla on June 25 to achieve these results. To facilitate a
thorough public debate on the offer, Congress leaders were
released from detention on June 15. The more important ones
among them also get ready to take part in the Simla
deliberations. The Simla Conference was foredoomed to failure
since Jinnah insisted on demanding his pound of flesh.

At the end of the war in Europe, Britain went to the polls
and returned Labour to power in July 1945 with Clement Attlee
as Prime Minister. L. S. Amery, an implacable foe of Indian
freedom and an ace fomentor of Indian dissensions, was
replaced by Lord Pethick Lawrence at the India Office. Attlee
was not an enthusiastic supporter of Indian independence but he
was a great realist who realised that a battered Britain’s post¬
war garrison responsibilities in India would be unbearable. The
new Secretary of State was a friend of India and an admirer of
Mahatma Gandhi. After consultations with the new Ministry, the
Viceroy announced on September 19 that steps would be taken
to hasten India’s attainment of self-government. A Constituent
Assembly would be brought into existence so that Indians might
frame their own constitution. General elections would be held in
the country during the cold weather to facilitate the creation of
such a body.

The elections of 1945-46 clinched the issue of India’s
partition. The Muslim League conducted the electoral campaign
with the zest of a jehad or religious war. Jinnah said: “If the
Muslim verdict is against Pakistan, I will stand down”. Besides
making a free use of strong-arm methods, heady slogans like
“Islam in danger” and “Pakistan Zindabad” were shouted as
part of the party’s electoral strategy. Professor Brecher has

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K. M. Munshi

called attention to the fanatical fervour that marked the League’s
methods for winning Muslim votes*.

The Muslim League’s electoral victory caused deep
concern to the nationalists all over the country. Sir Tej Bahadur
Sapru wrote to Munshi on January 16, 1946, saying that Jinnah
was most unlikely to join the Constituent Assembly. He
observed: “What is to happen then is the real question which
ought to engage your attention and that of the other leaders”.
Earlier, on the 5th of the same month, a British Parliamentary
Delegation came to India to study the political situation. Its
leader, Professor Robert Richards, who met Nehru, was
impressed with his statement of the Congress case with
moderation and without rancour. Jinnah told the Delegation that
he would refuse to have anything to do with any interim
government that did not give his party parity with all the other
parties, an bovious improvement on his demand at the Simla
Conference. Similarly, the partition of India and the setting up of
two constitution-making bodies must be conceded if the
League's co-operation in any temporary arrangement was
desired.

By now the Labour Governement had become fully
aware of the gravity of the Indian situation. It, therefore,
decided to cut the Gordian knot. A Cabinet Mission, consisting
of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State, Sir Stafford
Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, and A.V. Alexander,
first Lord of the Admiralty, arrived in India on March 24, 1946,
and after extensive consultations, published their scheme on
May 16 for settling the Indian problem. It was essentially a
compromise proposal designed to please both the nationalists

* Nehru's A Politial Biography by Michael Brecher, Oxford, 1959,
p. 304.

The Partition

117

and the separatists. The May offer envisaged an Indian Union,
endowed with all the three organs of governement. Its
constituents would consist of the eleven British Indian provinces
and the numerous Princely States. The jurisdiction of the
principal government would be limited to defence, foreign affairs
and communications. The provinces were proposed to be
divided into A, B and C sections. The first section was to
consist of Hindu-majority provinces while the second would
include the Punjab, Sind and the North-West Frontier Province.
The last section would conprise Bengal and Assam.

The scheme was rejected by both the Congress and the
Muslim League, though for different reasons. Munshi's reactions
to it were confided in his diary thus: "If it is implemented India
will be cut up into four: one Hindu, two Muslim and one
Princely. The Centre is bound to be weak. The Hindus of
Bengal and Assam will be crushed; the malignant spirit of zonal
divison of India, invoked by Professor Coupland, will stalk the
land.” After strenuous efforts, Wavell succeeded in bringing the
two principal parties into his Executive Council. While the
Congress under Nehru’s leadership joined it on September 2,
1946, the League did likewise on October 15, but not before
plunging large parts of the country into fratricidal conflict by its
“direct action”. The great Calcutta killing on August 16 has gone
down in history as one of the most gruesome episodes in the
pre-partition period. The London Conference in December,
attended by Wavell and the representatives of the two Indian
parties, proved utterly futile, forcing the Labour government to
use its own initiative in grasping the Indian nettle. Attlee and
Cripps felt that a change of Viceroyalty had become imperative
and replaced Wavell by Mountbatten.

Admiral Mountbatten, who took charge of the Indian
government on March 24, 1947, was a dynamic sailor-statesman
who was then in the full tide of his manhood. He had asked for

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K. M. Munshi

and was given plenipotentiary powers to deal with the Indian
situation. Such a free hand had been demanded before by
Curzon and Minto but it was firmly rejected on the ground that
it was against the letter and the spirit of the law and the
constitution. But then Mountbatten’s Viceroyalty was an
extraordinary one, his task being to perform the historic task of
winding up nearly the two-hundred year old British Raj in India.
The situation in the country decided him to take decisive and
urgent action as the only means of saving the sub-continent from
plunging into a terrible anarchy.

He had prepared a partition plan with the assistance of
Lord Ismay, a highly competent and influential person who had
accompanied him to India to assist in the momentous withdrawal
exercise. V. R Menon, Constitutional Adviser to the Government
of India, who saw it, strongly reacted against it since its
implementation would have broken up India like the Moghul
Empire. He produced an alternative scheme based on the
country’s division and secured Sardar Patel’s powerful support
to it. When Munshi expressed to the Sardar his surprise at his
consent to India’s partition, the latter said that it had become
inevitable. Munshi, who knew Menon well, paid a warm tribute
to his services to the country. He wrote: “He (Menon) rendered
unique service to the country, not only by integrating India under
Sardar ’s leadership, but earlier by saving the country from the
catastrophe which would have, certainly overtaken India had he
not intervened to blow up the Iismay Plan”.

Mountbatten’s revised scheme, based on Menon’s
suggestions and endorsed by the Attlee Government, was
published on June 3. It provided for India’s partition, but the
territories of the seceding State would be strictly limited to the
Muslim majority areas. The non-Muslim legislators of Punjab
and Bengal, sitting separately, decided that the districts
commanding the majority of their co-religionists should be

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119

joined to India. On the same principle, Sylhet was detached
from Assam and given to East Pakistan. A Boundary Commission
under the Chairmanship of Sir Cyril Radcliffe, was appointed to
demarcate the Indo-Pakistan borders. Since the Hindu and
Muslim members of the mission could not agree, Sir Cyril’s
findings became an Award. Many surprises were in store for the
Hindus and Sikhs of the Punjab when the Award was published
on August 17. The loss of Lahore was a great blow to them.

The massacres and migrations that preceded and followed
India’s partition were on an unparalleled scale. The partition
riots are claimed to have taken the toll of some two lakh lives
while ten million people were uprooted from their ancestral
homes to take shelter in far away places, most of them with no
means of livelihood. Such tremendous suffering and sacrifice
was imposed on the Indians because, till the last days of their
withdrawal, the British never considered the transfer of power
as a simple and inevitable act of justice. They had laid this
country under a deep debt of gratitude by rescuing it from
chaos, by giving it a strong and stable government based on the
rule of law, and by bringing to the doorstep of its people
Western science and enlightenment, including Western democratic
institutions. Had they withdrawn from India in good time by
honouring their own commitments, they would have won an
abiding place in world history as great liberators. They did not
leave when the going was good because they looked upon her
as their milch cow. Munshi commented on the economic
consequences of British rule, thus: “Today, after a century and
a half of British rule, we are poor, underfed, illiterate, backward
in all respects where Government help was necessary, thwarted
in all matters where no such help was needed. This is neither
mere logic nor rhetoric; it is the testimony of facts mostly found

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K. M. Munshi

by Britishers.” He concluded that Britain’s rule was a cold¬
blooded rule”*.

August 15, 1947, was a great day for India.
It marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. In
the country’s capital, the advent of independence was celebrated
at midnight on August 75 with great solemnity. The hall of the
Constituent Assembly was brilliantly lit and decorated. Munshi,
a member of the constitution-making body, sat in the second
row along with the well-known Maharashtra leader, Shankarrao
Deo, just behind Sardar Patel. Like his colleagues, Munshi took
the solemn oath to dedicate himself “in all humility to the service
of India and her people to the end that this
ancient land attain her rightful place in the world and make her
full and willing contribution to the promotion of world peace and
the welfare of mankind”. It was on this occasion that Nehru,
free India’s first Prime Minister, made a memorable speech. He
said: “Long years ago we made a tryst with Destiny, and now

the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge . At the

stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will
awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but
rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new,
when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long
suppressed, finds utterance”.

Munshi, who had dreamed of freedom from his boyhood
and continuously wrote stirring patriotic literature, was aglow
with excitement on that great day. He confided his feelings to his
diary. He wrote : “Independence came sooner than I had
dreamt of; more like the end of an inartistically woven plot
abruptly, almost inconsequentially”. He wrote these melancholy
words because freedom came by shattering his dream of

* The Ruin that Britain Wrought by K. M. Munhi, Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, 1946, pp. 2, 8.

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121

Akhand Hindustan. Nevertheless, what happened on August 15
was “a great thing in the history of mankind.” It also marked the
end of the Gandhian age and the beginning of the Nehru era.
Munshi’s attachment to Sardar Patel was second only to his
devotion to the Mahatma. He wrote: “Independence has also
given a tremendous opportunity to Sardar. He is made of the
stern stuff of which Bismarck was made. His alert mind, his
uncanny insight into human weaknesses and his great gift for
organisation have found scope and fulfilment in the Free India
unlimited of today”*. Munshi also found in free India unlimited
opportunities for exercising his own considerable talents in the
service of his motherland.

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 136, 141.

Princely India

WITH THE PARTITION OF INDIA, involving the loss
of 364,737 square miles of territory, the country’s
tribulations did not end. The existence of over five hundred
princi- palities of varying sizes and in differing stages of
development and the pretensions and ambitions of their rulers
posed a further threat to the country’s integrity. Professor
Coupland correctly described the position thus : “India could
live if its Moslem limbs in the north-west and north-east were
amputated, but could it live without its midriff?”*. Sir Archibald
Nye, former Governor of Madras and Britain’s first High
Commissioner in free India, expressed similar concern about the
gravity of the states’ problem. He doubted the feasibility of any
friendly settlement with the Princes and “visualised trouble of
incalculable dimensions after the I5th August”. Britain’s earlier
commitments to the rulers to meet the exigencies of the Indian
political situation and their reiteration at the time of her
withdrawal encouraged the Princely Order into believing that
the accession of the States to free India depended entirely upon
the volition of individual rulers. Had this view prevailed, the
Balkanisation of an already truncated country would have been
accomplished with all its terrible consequences. There would
indeed have been no India at all.

* India: A Restatement by Sir Reginald Coupland, Oxford, 1945, p.
278.

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123

Munshi was aware of the seriousness of the states’
problem. He had his education in Baroda, one of the
best-governed principalities. He evinced wholesome respect for
Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad who was not only forward-
looking but was endowed with great political sagacity. The
Maharaja was convinced that in a well-regulated polity there
was no place for a Princely Order whose survival depended
entirely upon the continued domination of his motherland by a
foreign power. He confided to the Aga Khan thus: “The first
thing you’ll have to do when the British are gone, is to get rid
of all these rubbish states. I tell you, there'll never be an Indian
nation until the so-called Princely Order disappears. Its
disappearance will be the best thing that can happen to India,
the best possible thing”*. Baroda was among the five big
principalities with an administration that was one lap ahead of its
counterpart in British India in some respects. And yet its ruler
was prepared to impose an unparalleled self-denying ordinance
upon himself and dynasty. A keen student of affairs, Munshi had
also the opportunity of observing how the rulers of the
Kathiawad States comported themselves. Now known as
Saurashtra, Kathiawad was a veritable museum of principalities
before independence.

Like most of the nationalists in British India, Munshi
watched the happenings in the princely states almost till the end
of the nineteen thirties with no intention of taking direct interest
in them. Although the Motilal Nehru Committe, 1928, vehemently
refuted the charge that Congress interest in “Indian India” was
fitful, there is no doubt that no sustained efforts were made to
rescue the ninety-three million people there from capricious mle.
In fact, some British Indian politicians felt that, however bad the

* The Memoirs of Aga Khan, pp. 301-302.

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K. M. Munshi

administration in the states, they should not be viewed severely
because they symbolised Swaraj or self-rule. Perhaps, it is for
this reason that only faint voices were raised during the British
period for the abolition of the states.

The states, with their population of over 93 million,
covered an area of 715,964 square miles or nearly twice the
size of Pakistan before the secession of its eastern wing in 1971
and the birth of Bangladesh. Great skill and statesmanship were
needed to pull them out of medieval conditions and to expose
them to the wind of change. It was impossible to give even a
single rational explanation for their continued existence under
British paramountcy. India is certainly a country of continental
size, but to have allowed as many as five hundred odd
principalities of bewildering diversity to survive the tide of
British conquest was the gravest reproach to all canons of
territorial demarcation.

The great rebellion of 1 857 marked the turning-point in
the relations between the British Raj and its feudatories. Many
leading princes rushed to the aid of the foreign Government in
the hour of its direct need, their steadfast loyalty serving as an
eye-opener to it. The crucial role played by the princes during
that period is exemplified by the observation: “If the Nizam
goes, all goes”. Of course, the Nizam did not go and, as a
writer, Sir Sidney Low, gratefully acknowledged, the British Raj
was saved. Out of the discovery of the value of the
Princely Order was born the dictum: “Once a State always a
State”. The policy of annexation was abandoned for good.
Thenceforward princes guilty of gross misrule were punished
individually while their states were spared.

The emerging relations between the princes and their
foreign protectors were well described by Professor Westlake.

Princely India

125

He wrote: “There is good reason to believe that both
by them and us a comradeship in difficulty and danger is indeed
felt, such a comradeship as engages the strenuous
and loyal exertions of a ship’s crew under the categorical
imperative of the Captain”*. The strange partnership between
the two was solely governed by the consideration of survival.
The mounting pressure' of nationalism, especially after the first
world war, forced them into such a preposterous relationship.
Though pampered, the princes were not allowed to forget their
subordinate status.

Responding to their plea in May 1927 for an expert
investigation into the relationship between their states and the
paramount power, the Government appointed a Committee
under the Chairmanship of Sir Harcourt Butler to report on the
issue. They engaged Sir Leslie Scott and many other British legal
luminaries at a staggering cost to advocate their case. The
princes’ counsel argued with complete indifference to historical
facts that their principalities had enjoyed sovereignty before they
accepted British paramountcy. They also maintained with equal
contempt for realities that their relations were with the Crown of
England and not with the Government of India for the time being.
The Butler Committee categorically rejected the suggestion that
the British Government’s relations with the states were based on
the doctrine of limited liability and declared with absolute finality
that “paramountcy must always remain paramount”. It, however,
recorded its “strong opinion” that “in view of the historical nature
of the relationship between the Paramount Power and the
Princes, the latter should not be transferred without their
agreement to a relationship with a new government in British India
responsible to an Indian legislature”. The Government readily

* Collected Papers on International Law by Westlake, edited by
professor Oppenheim, p. 632.

126

K. M. Munshi

accepted these recommendations and thus created a grave
problem for the mlers of free India in dealing with the question of
princely states.

Although the princes signally failed to secure any modification
of their subordination to British suzerainty, they were delighted at
the assurance that they and their dynasties could depend for their
security and permanence on the support of the powerful British
Raj. This had a disastrous effect on the quality of the states’
administration, in many of which it became a nightmare. Some of
the princes, aided by their advisers, asserted that they were not
free to allow their subjects a share in the government of their
states without the express consent of the paramount power.
Authoritative clarifications from Whitehall that no such permission
was necessary for the introduction of enlightened administration
fell on deaf ears.

To the surprise of most people, in 1938-39, Mahatma
Gandhi and Sardar Patel intervened in the petty state of Rajkot
in Saurashtra in defence of the civic rights of its people. The
young Thakore Saheb was a virtual puppet in the tyrannical
hands of Darbar Virawala, the Dewan. Munshi, who closely
watched the developments in the state, wrote that “the British
Indian authorities mobilized the zamindars and the leading
Muslims of Rajkot to stage a demonstration against Gandhiji.”
To quell the opposition of the Thakore Saheb to reforms,
Gandhi went on a fast on February 4, 1939, which led to
Viceregal intervention. The Chief Justice of the Federal Court of
India, Sir Maurice Gwyer, whose legal opinion was sought,
gave his verdict in favour of Gandhi and the Sardar. With his
characteristic unpredictability, the Mahatma renounced the gains
of the judicial decision on the ground that his fast was
“tainted with himsa ”

Princely India

127

All this time, the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, was intensifying
his efforts to draw the states into the federal scheme. He had
set his heart on this project because, as a fervent believer in the
British mission in India, he was convinced that, with a federal
structure consisting of a congeries of mutually-incompatible
elements, Whitehall’s hegemony in the country would last as
long as one could foresee. The admission of the states into the
federation, with their sizable representation in the bicameral
legislature at the Centre, was imperative in his scheme of things.
The princes’ repugnance for an all-India polity and the outbreak
of the Second World War in September forced him to abandon
his favourite project.

For some years before these happenings, things had
begun to move even in the unchanging states. In a number of
them, the Praja Mandals had become better organised and
more and more assertive. Munshi found that his professsional
advice was increasingly in request by the States’ and their
rulers. As we saw in an earlier chapter, he went to Ratlam, a
medium-sized State in Central India, now Madhya Bharat, to
defend seven or eight persons, including a doctor and a lawyer,
who had been tried and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
Among other things, they were accused of “attempting to
overthrow the lawfully established Government of His Highness
Maharaja Sajjan Singh of Ratlam. The Praja Mandal in the
State was practically dead and no local lawyer ventured to
defend the accused. In the middle of December 1941,
Mahatma Gandhi asked Munshi to go to the State and appear
for the accused in the criminal appeal. The Mahatma wrote to
him thus: “By advocacy you can only achieve what is possible,
but by your going there, the poor prisoners will find some
comfort. Meet the officers there and spread the cult of mercy
even by going out of your (professional) field”. What transpired

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K. M. Munshi

Munshi and the powerful Defence Minister of the state
Shivjibhai, and how by eating a single kachauri as the letter's
guest, the Bombay lawyer could win the case has been narrated
in chapter Three.

Despite the failure of the Cripps Mission, it became
evident even to the most conservative and uninstructed princes
that Britain’s withdrawal from India sooner than later was
inevitable. A number of rulers began to give serious thought to
their future. Many favoured union of States, wherever such an
arrangement was possible. Munshi, who went to Udaipur, an
ancient and historically important principality in Rajasthan, to
preside over the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, had the opportunity
of meeting the Maharana and several Rajasthan rulers. He told
Maharana Bhupal Singh, with whom he had friendly relations,
that it would be in the fitness of things if a Hindi university could
be established at Chitod, the scene of memorable battles. The
ruler was a traditionalist par excellence. The Brahmins paid no
land revenue in his State. In November 1945, he invited Munshi
to be a member of the Final Court of Appeal. Munshi ’s
association with the State continued till the formation of the
United State of Rajasthan and its inauguration in
March 1948.

As the realm of Maharana Pratap, Udaipur or Me wad
stirred the historically minded Munshi to his very depths. He
was prepared to go to any reasonable length to help the
Maharana in safeguarding the interests of his ancient House. He
told the Maharana, who loved his people dearly, that great
things were going to happen soon, both in British India and in
the Princely States. On April 23, 1947, he advised the ruler to
send a representative from his state to the Indian Constituent
Assembly which had been brought into existence on December
9, 1946. Munshi wrote: “From now to June, there is going to

Princely India

129

be a tremendous upheaval in the country. Men as well as capital
are trying to find out some well-protected Indian states where
they can find an asylum during the coming turbulent times”. He
gave similar advice to other Rajasthani rulers to participate in
the constitution-making deliberations in New Delhi and to weld
their various states into a single, strong and viable administrative
unit. He kept Nehru and Sardar Patel fully informed about what
he was doing in the states. His effort to modernise Mewad’s
government, however, yielded poor results. He wrote
ruefully : “I tried to perform, with obsessional vigour, the task
of vitalizing the important departments of the state which were
just functioning because, having lived so long, they did not know
how to die”. Many rulers in other parts of the country consulted
Munshi on two issues vital to them, namely, protection for their
personal properties and their place in India’s future set up. His
invariable advice to them was that they should promptly send
their representatives to Constituent Assembly.

The advent of labour to power in England at the end of
the war in Europe further strengthened the Indian belief that
British withdrawal from this country was certain. The most
decisive proof of th s was given by the visit of three senior
British Cabinet Ministers to this country in 1946 to discuss the
modalities for the transfer of power. On May 12, the Cabinet
Mission presented to the Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes
a Memorandum about the states. The document pointed out to
the princes that when the contemplated transfer of power to
Indians took place, \ Whitehall would have no influence over the
successor GovernnK nt or Governments and that it would be
impossible for it to station British troops on Indian soil in order
to protect them. In such circumstances, the British Government
would cease to exercise the powers of paramountcy over them.
“This means”, the Memorandum explained, “that the rights of
the states which flow from their relationship to the Crown will

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K. M. Munshi

no longer exist and that all the rights surrendered by states to
the Paramount Power will return to the states”. The British
Government, which had all the time firmly rejected the Princes’
doctrine of pre-existing sovereignty, now conceded it implicitly,
thus gravely endangering India’s territorial integrity. It was as
though one division of the country to accommodate Pakistan
was not enough.

In another statement, both the Cabinet Delegation and the
Viceroy reiterated the thesis that “paramountcy can neither be
retained by the British Crown nor transferred to the new
Government”. In pursuance of this policy, the Indian
Independence Act, 1947, provided for the abrogation of the
British Crown’s suzerainty over the princes. The princes were
delighted at the turn of the events in their favour. On January 29,
1947, the Chamber of Princes declared that the entry of the
states into the Indian Union would be through negotiation and
that “final decision shall rest with each state”. The Nawab of
Bhopal, who held the key position of Chancellor of the
Chamber of Princes, told Lord Mountbatten, the new Viceroy,
that he “abhorred” the Congress and that he would have
“nothing to do with a Congress- Dominated India”*. The
certainty of India’s partition gave a tremendous fillip to his
disruptive activities. He tried to rope in the Maharajas of
Jodhpur, Indore and Udaipur to secure geographical contiguity
for his State so that he could commit its destiny to the care of
Pakistan. The Maharana rejected the unpatriotic scheme with
disdain. In words worthy of the scion of Ranas Sanga and
Pratap, he said: “My choice was made by my ancestors. If they

* The Last Days of the British Raj by Leonard Mosley, Weidenfeld
and Nicolson, 1961, p. 177.

Princely India

131

had faltered, they would have left us a kingdom as large as
Hyderabad. They did not; neither shall 1. 1 am with India”#.

The services of constitutional experts were sought by the
princes to prepare schemes for the Union of States. While
Dr. M. R. Jayakar advised the Princes of the Deccan States on
how best they could come together, the task of preparing a
detailed constitution for this purpose fell on Munshi. There were
eighteen principalities in the Deccan, the biggest of them being
Kolhapur with an area of 3,219 square miles, a population of
1,092,046 and a revenue of Rs. 52,03,000. The smallest State,
ruled by a Nawab, was Savnur, which was barely 70 square
miles in size. Even smaller than it was Wadi, an estate. A
combination of the eighteen states would, however, have
transformed them into a sizeable administrative unit with the
necessary resources to cater to the social and economic
progress of their people. Their combined strength in area,
population and revenue would have been 10,870 square miles,
2,785,428 people and Rs. 1,42,23,000* **. Many of the rulers
of these states had liberal education and were forward-looking.
On July 28, 1946, some of them met Mahatma Gandhi for his
blessings to their project. He advised them to meet Nehru who
welcomed their idea. He, however, asked them to Introduce
political reforms in their respective states. They did not relish
the suggestion since they felt that they would be at the mercy of
the Praja Mandals once power was transferred. They formed
themselves into the Deccan States’ Union Organisation and
invited Munshi to be their Constitutional Adviser.

After holding discussions with some of the knowledgeable
rulers and their advisers, Munshi prepared a Covenant for the

# Pilgrimate to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 163.

**The Future of Indian States by V. B. Kulkarni, Thacker, 1944, pp.
86-87.

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K. M. Munshi

proposed Union of the Deccan States. The United State was to
be called Samyukta Dakshina Rajya or the United Deccan
States. The Preamble to the Covenant ran thus : “The Rulers of
the ratifying States stressed the need to form a single State with
a unitary Government, which would take its place as a unit in
the Union of India. The Rulers’ rights, privileges and authorities
were to be suitably adjusted so as to lead to the formation of
a united executive authority, common legislature, common
judiciary and common customs and boundaries which would
secure constitutional freedom to the people of the State to be
so formed*.

Events were, however, moving fast. On July 5, 1947,
Sardar Patel took charge of the States Department of the
Government of India and set in motion changes in the Princely
States, the revolutionary significance of which was unparalleled
in India’s history. All the Deccan States, except Kolhapur,
merged their separate identity into the adjoinnig districts of the
Bombay Province by agreements signed on February 19, 1948.
In doing so, they followed the example of the Orissa and
Chhatisgarh States, which had agreed in December 1947 to be
absorbed into the adjoining districts. On February 1, 1949,
Kolhapur, which had kept aloof from the rest of the Deccan
States, was taken by the Bombay Government. A noteworthy
feature of the Covenant for the Union of the Deccan States is
that such a far-reaching project was conceived well before
Sardar Patel and his able and resourceful Secretary, V. P.
Menon, had formulated their policy of integration.

The Sardar’s friendliness, his sincerity and his determination
to be fair and considerate to them, appealed to most of the

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, pp. 154-56,
466-77.

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133

princes. They felt confident that their interests would be safe in
his hands. In V. P. Menon, he had a lieutenant who was
admirably equipped to assist him in hastening a bloodless
revolution in the country. Even before the Sardar’s famous
appeal was made, the representatives of Baroda, Cochin,
Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Patiala and Rewa had taken their
seats in the Constituent Assembly. They bad done so on April
28, 1947. By August 15 all the States, except Hyderabad,
Junagadh and Kashmir, had signed the Instruments of Accession
and Standstill Agreements, the latter intended to maintain the
status quo till permanent arrangements could be made to
regulate the relations between the states and the Indian
Government. Despite his rashness and extravagance, the
Maharaja of Baroda was the first mler to sign the Instmment of
Accession. The rulers of Bikaner and Patiala played a great part
in frustrating the evil designs of the saboteurs of Indian unity.

From accession to integration was the next logical step.
A large number of petty principalities, whose continued
existence was a reproach to all canons of territorial demarcation,
were mercifully dissolved into the adjoining districts. This great
mopping up operation, covering 216 states with an area of
108,739 square miles, was initiated in the feudatory states of
Orissa and Chhatisgarh and was extended to other parts of the
country. As the dissolution of the principalities gathered
momentum, it became difficult to distinguish between big and
small states. Appreciating the need for the integration of their
states, the rulers of Rewa, Indore, Gwalior and Patiala offered
to pass a self-denying ordinance upon themselves. The Jam
Saheb of Nawanagar proved a tower of strength to the Sardar.

A large number of the remaining states were welded
together to form themselves into six Unions. The leader and first
model for such amalgamated principalities was the United

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K. M. Munshi

States of Saurashtra which absorbed as many as 222 states and
estates of Kathiawad. The other United states of this kind were
Vindhya Pradesh, Greater Rajasthan, Madhya Bharat, Patiala
and East Punjab states and Travancore-Cochin. Mysore was
not united with the rest of India until a countrywide administrative
reorganisation took place in later years. When the Rajasthan
Union was created, the Maharaja of Jaipur became the
Rajpramukh. An able and forward-looking ruler, he fully
deserved this honour, but Munshi’s “sense of history was
outraged by the descendant of Rana Pratap, the Maharana of
Udaipur, being placed below the descendant of Maharaja
Bhagwandas of Jaipur”. He spoke to the Sardar about this
“historic wrong” and pleaded for rectifying it. The Sardar
readily responded to his plea and designated the Maharana as
“Maharaj Pramukh”*

Junagadh, like Hyderabad, refused to make common
cause with India. Situated in Saurashtra, 82 per cent of its
population was Hindu. “From time immemorial”, writes Munshi,
“Lord Somnath was the guardian deity of the people; Prabhasa,
Gimar and Junagadh were associated with the sacred memory
of Sri Krishna, venerated by the Hindus, over the country.
Junagadh again, was the home of Raja Khengar and his Queen
Ranak Devi — symbols of heroism enshrined in song and story
in Western India”. Historical accident had brought this State
under the rule of a Muslim dynasty. The ruler at this time, Sir
Mohabat Khan Rasulkhanji, was an eccentric of rare vintage.
To him kennels and harem were more important than anything
else. He had united two. dogs in unholy wedlock at a staggering
expense to the State and had declared a public holiday on that
occasion. There was no geographical contiguity between his

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 163.

Princely India

135

State and Pakistan except by sea and air and yet, by
responding to Jinnah’s suggestion, he secretly committed the
destiny of an essentially Indian territory to the fanatical care of
Pakistan before August 15, 1947. At first, he was inclined to
remain with India, but the machinations of Jinnah and his newly-
appointed Dewan, Sir Shah Nawaj Bhutto, a Muslim Leaguer
from Karachi and the parent of the ill-fated Zulfikar Ali Bhutto*
caused him to change his mind.

Retribution overtook the Nawab swiftly. The Kathiawar
Political Conference challenged the accession of the State to the
wrong Dominion. A provisional Government was set up to
dislodge the unwanted ruler. The draft of the declaration about
its formation was prepared by Munshi. Large numbers of young
men from all over Saurashtra came together to assist the new
Government in its task of liberating the State. The approach of
the volunteers frightened the Nawab who precipitately fled to
Karachi, not forgetting to carry with him his jewels, and a surfeit
of dogs and wives. The issue of the State’s accession was
referred to its people who voted overwhelmingly in favour of
remaining with India — 190,779 for and 91 against. Bhutto, who
also ran away, resigned the fate of the State to the care of
Harvey Jones who promptly delivered its administration to the
Indian Regional Commissioner.

It was Sardar Patel’s sagacious leadership and the
patriotism of a large number of princes which made the solution
of the intractable problem of the States’ integration with India
possible. The Russian leader, Khruschev, was astonished that
such a mighty undertaking was accomplished without violence
or bloodshed. During his visit to India in 1956 he said: “You

* Z. A. Bhutto, deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan, was hanged on
April 4, 1979, under the orders of the military regime there.

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K. M. Munshi

Indians are a remarkable people. How did you manage to
liquidate the princely States without liquidating the princes?”.
From a mere accession to a total disappearance of the States
was not an ordinary happening and yet most of the dispossessed
yet rulers accepted the new dispensation without demur. The
Sardar was fully conscious of the tremendous sacrifice made by
the Princely Order and ensured that the settlement with them
was fair and to their satisfaction.

In spite of his generosity, what they received was modest
compared to what they were accustomed to take. From Rs. 20
crores a year, their Privy Purse was drastically pruned down to
Rs. 5.8 crores. Following the death of some of the leading
princes, the amount dwindled to Rs. 3 crores. This small
payment was permanently stopped by means of a constitutional
amendment in August 1971. During the debate in Parliament on
the abolition of the Privy Purse, the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira
Gandhi, said that there was a great levelling process in the
country aimed at abolishing class division and class distinction.
The Maharaja of Baroda, whose State was the first to sign the
Instrument of Accession, defended his defunct order in the Lok
Sabha thus: “Twenty-two years ago, on this floor, we were
referred to as co-architects of Indian Independence. Today we
are branded as an anachronism and, later, as reactionaries
obstructing the path of building an egalitarian society”*. How
Sardar Patel grasped the Hyderabad nettle with Munshi’ s
assistance narrated in the next chapter.

* Princess Remembers: The Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur by
Gayatri Devi of Jaipur and Santha Rama Rau, published by
Lippincolt Co., Philadelphia and New York, 1976, p. 323.

Hyderabad

SINCE THE INAUGURATION OF the Constituent
Assembly on December 9, 1946, Munshi became one of its
most active members. His sound knowledge of constitutional
law and his industry and enthusiasm for the work were an
asset to the constitution-making body. Towards the end of
December 1947, Sardar Patel, then India’s Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister in charge of the States Ministry, surprised
him while they were taking tea together by saying that he,
Munshi, should go to Hyderabad as India’s representative. The
Sardar said: “We have to send an agent to Hyderabad under
the Standstill Agreement”. His choice was well made. Apart
from the fact that Munshi had a first-hand knowledge of the
States’ problem and was in fact playing an active role in
persuading more and more princes to come into the Indian
Union’s fold, his standing in Indian public life influenced the
Sardar’s selection. Munshi was, however, not happy at the
prospect of being separated from the Constituent Assembly at
a time when the supreme statute of the land was being put into
shape. His esteem and friendship for the Sardar, however, made
it impossible for him to turn down the offer.

Munshi called on Mahatma Gandhi to take counsel with
him. The Mahatma heartily agreed with the suggestion. He
conceded that it was a difficult assignment but asked Munshi “if
such as you hesitate to undertake the work, how are we to
make any progress?” When he called on the Prime Minister, he

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was briefed about the happenings in the State. “Hyderabad”,
Nehru said: “is sure to accede. It cannot run away from India”.
Munshi was elated by Nehru's optimism and his confidence in
him. He thought that he would be able to return to the labours
of the constitution- making body by the end of April with the
Nizam’s Instrument of Accession in his “pocket”. His meeting
with the Governor-General, Lord Mountbatten, was equally
rewarding. Munshi wrote: “He was kind enough to remark that
the job was one of a front-rank politician and he was glad I had
been selected”. Mountbatten was also hopeful that Munshi ’s
mission in Hyderabad would not last for more than three or four
months, by which time the Nizam would realise the wisdom of
lining up with India. Munshi ’s appointment as India’s Agent-
General in Hyderabad was announced on December 25, 1947.

His task in the premier Princely State, situated in the
Deccan, was to ensure that the provisions of the Standstill
Agreement, concluded by the Nizam with the Government of
India on November 29, 1947, were honestly and fully
implemented. According to any standard of appraisal, it was
a strange agreement which differed fundamentally from the
hundreds of Instruments of Accession executed by the rulers of
other states. At a time when revolutionary changes were taking
place in the country, as in the rest of the world, it was too much
to expect that anything could stand still, much less the relations
between Hyderabad and New Delhi. According to the
November agreement, the arrangements that had existed
between India and Hyderabad before August 15 in the
administration of their common affairs, including external
relations, defence and communications, were to be continued.
The Indian Government committed itself to be withdraw its
troops from the Nizam’s Dominions and not to claim any
paramountcy rights over the State. It also agreed to send an
agent to Hyderabad and accept one from the Nizam in

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New Delhi for the “better execution of the purposes” of
the settlement. Any dispute between the two parties over
the agreement, tenable for one year, was to be referred
to arbitration*.

It was an astonishing document which presented the most
distorted picture of the true relationship of the Nizam with the
Government of India since the establishment of Hyderabad as
a succession State after the dissolution of the Moghul Empire in
the first quarter of the eighteenth century. It was unhistorical and
contrary to all canons of fairplay towards the rest of the Princely
Order to treat the Nizam as distinct and apart from its
members. He got these amazing concessions entirely because
the negotiations with him were conducted by the Governor-
General, Lord Mountbatten, and not by the redoubtable Sarder
Patel. The Nehru government felt called upon to resign this
responsibility to Mountbatten because of its vulnerable position
at that time. India had suffered a grave surgical operation and
was bleeding profusely. The widespread violence in northern
India that accompanied the partition had made the law and
order situation most tenuous. Muslim extremists in the sub¬
continent had come to regard the Nizam as the symbol of
Islamic “sovereignty” in the South. Besides, His Exalted
Highness Mir Usman Ali Khan had long been toying with
grandiose ideas about his status and had announced his decision
to assume “independent sovereignty” after the lapse of British
paramountcy over his State. A large number of Muslims in
Hyderabad had organised and armed themselves to support the
pretensions of their Ala Hazrat at all costs.

The Sardar shared the unhappiness of his countrymen over
the November Standstill Agreement with the Nizam. He was,

* White Paper on Hyderabad , Government of India, 1948, p. 43.

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K. M. Munshi

however, certain that the Nizam’s downfall was inevitable. By
entrusting the negotiations to Mountbatten, whose motives none
could impugn, he wanted the world to realise how self-willed
the ruler of Hyderabad was. He, therefore, defended the
Agreement in the Constitutent Assembly on November 29. He
said that India would have been happy if Hyderabad had
acceeded to her in the same manner as the other States had
done, but “consistent with our policy to secure agreement, not
by coercion, but as far as possible with the maximum degree of
goodwill on both sides and with due regard to the overall
position, we felt that an agreement of this nature, even for a
limited period, would have considerable advantages over the
absence of any agreement whatsoever”. He hoped that the
period of one year would be utilized for forging closer links
between the two parties, thus paving the way for Hyderabad’s
final accession to India*.

Munshi found his position most difficult. The Nizam and his
fanatical supporters had virtually reduced the standstill Agreement
to a deadletter. They were determined to use the time allowed
in it to prepare the State for a showdown with the Indian
government the sandar futility of demanding a faithful adhercane
to the terms of the agreement. When Munshi met him sometime
after taking charge of his office in Hyderabad, he was told to
concentrate on negotiating a permanent settlement by March
31, 1948. How he should set about to achieve this end was,
however, left to his own ingenuity and initiative. He rightly
complained : “Never in the rich and varied annals of diplomatic
history, so far as I know, was a diplomat sent on such a vague
and nebulous mission as I was. My only authority was the
clause in the Standstill Agreement which ran: “The Government

* Ibid p. 48.

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of India and the Nizam agree for the better execution of the
purposes of this Agreement to appoint agents in Hyderabad and
Delhi respectively, and to give every facility to them for the
discharge of their functions”. Munshi’s devotion to his motherland,
his admiration for the antiquity and splendour of the Indian
civilization, his abhorance for communal politics and his eminent
qualities as lawyer, scholar and politician were anathema to
Hyderabad’s ruling class. It looked upon him as the potential
destroyer of its dreams and as the harbinger of the State’s
doom. It, therefore, decided to frustrate his mission by leaving
him high and dry. It did not take Munshi long to realise that the
aim of the Nizam and his adherents was to make Hyderabad a
“third Dominion”.

To prove the absurdity of this claim, it is necessary to delve
somewhat deeply into the history of Hyderabad and the role
played by its rulers from the time of its foundation till the
withdrawal of the British from India. After the death of
Aurangzeb, the Moghul Emperor, in 1707, his realm came
under the control of a succession of weak rulers and soon fell
to pieces. The ambitious Subedars or Governors of the Empire,
taking advantage of the unstable conditions, established their
independent sway in Oudh, Bengal and Hyderabad. The
founder of the last-named succession State was Mir Qamaruddin,
grandson of Khwaja Abid who, like Babar, the founder of the
Moghul dynasty in India, was a native of Central Asia. Abid first
came to India in 1654-55 on his way to Mecca and returned
to this country in the following year. He was a man of deep
piety and scholarship besides being a brave soldier. His qualities
attracted Emperor Shah Jehan’s attention, but he shrewdly
made common cause with Aurangzeb and assisted him in
gaining the throne through fratricidal conflict. He became the
trusted counsellor of the new Emperor who showered gifts and
patronage on him. He rose to become the acknowledged chief

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of the Turani soldiery. Abid’s eldest son, Shihabuddin Khan,
arrived in India in 1669 in the twelfth year of Aurangzeb’s reign
and, by displaying conspicuous courage in the wars against the
Rajputs and the Marathas, gained a prominent position in the
imperial court. He was dignified with the title of Ghaziuddin
Firuz Jang.

Mir Qamaruddin, founder of the Asaf Jah dynasty, was the
son of this successful man and was bom on August 11, 1671.
He grew in the imperial court under the care of the ageing
Emperor who conferred on him in 1691 the title of Chin Qilich
Khan. Following Aurangzeb’s death, there were a series of
pageant emperors who, emerging from obscurity, went into
oblivion with astonishing rapidity. Their courts became hot-beds
of intrigue and corruption. During the six years that intervened
between the death of Aurangzeb and his first appointment as the
Subedar of the Deccan, Qamaruddin saw enough in Delhi
which decided him to stay away from the capital of a decrepit
Empire. The first period of his Viceroyalty was brief, but his
second term, besides being long, ended in the founding of
Hyderabad as a state, practically independent of Delhi. Thus,
the Deccan state came under the government of Asaf Jahi
dynasty which was, however, careful not to claim independent
sovereignty.

Mir Qamaruddin, who was honoured with the title of
Nizam-ul-Mulk, was a man of the world par excellence. His sole
concern was to preserve his newly acquired realm from becoming
a prey to the Marathas who were fast becoming the most
formidable military power in India. The affairs of these warlike
highlanders were controlled by an able and astute Brahmin, Balaji
Viswanath, who became Peshwa in 17 14. Sir Richard Temple,
who had made a first-hand study of the Maratha history, wrote
that the Peshwa “had a calm, comprehensive and commanding

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intellect, an imaginative and aspiring disposition, and an aptitude
for ruling rude natures by moral force, a genius for diplomatic
combination and a mastery of finance”. The first Nizam was
equally astute but totally devoid of scruples. Briggs has described
him thus: “If pliableness of will, unparalleled duplicity and utter
unscrupulousness constitute the necessary elements of greatness,
Nizam-ul-Mulk possessed them in a degree pasing belief’*.
These qualities did not, however, avert his ignominious defeat at
the hands of Peshwa Bajirao I, thirty years his junior. Bajirao,
acclaimed as a heaven-born cavalry leader, inflicted major
military defeats on him, his discomfiture at Palkhed in the early
months of 1728 being memorable. It was well within the ability
of the Marathas to destroy the Asaf Jahi dynasty at its very birth
were it not for the fact that they were restrained from doing so by
their ruler, Shahu. Writing on the subject, the historian of the
Marathas, G. S. Sardesai, calls attention to the ruler’s directive to
the Peshwa: “You must on no account inflict any loss upon
Nizam-ul-Mink or injure his susceptibilities. We enjoin this on you
as a sacred obligation to the memory of your revered father” .#
Before his death in June 1748, the Nizam earnestly advised his
son, Nasar Jang, never to come into conflict with the Marathas.

Whatever greatness there was in the founder of the Asaf
Jahi dynasty perished with him. His successors inherited from
him in full measure, not his estimable qualities, but his cunning
and circumspect treachery. In the dynastic disputes that ensued,
the contestants to the Hyderabad masnad sought the military
assistance of the rising European powers in the South. Dupleix,

* The Nizam by Henry George Briggs, Volume 1, Bernard Quaritch,
1861, p. 53.

# New History of the Marathas by G.. S. Sardesai, Volume IL Phoenix
Publications, 1948, p. 100.

10—473 M. of I&B/ND/81.

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K. M. Munshi

who became Governor of the French settlements in India in
1741, cherished the ambition of planting his nation’s greatness
on Indian soil. Towards this end, he intervened in the domestic
disputes of the rulers of Hyderabad and the Carnatic. Although
Dupleix’s successors were deficient in his abilities, his countryman
Bussy, succeeded in establishing French ascendancy in
Hyderabad by putting Salbat Jang on the masnad. The English
traders, however, succeeded in dislodging their European rivals
from the South and in eventually winning continental sovereignty.

Lord Wellesley, the Governor-General, who perfected the
system of Subsidiary Alliance, decided to destroy the supremacy
of Tipu Sultan of Mysore in the South and sought and readily
secured the assistance of the Nizam towards this end. The
Nizam had earlier given a solemn assurance to the Mysore ruler
that he would stand by him in his drive to expel the foreigners
from the country. In token of his friendship for and religious
solidarity with Tipu, he had sent him a splendid copy of the
Koran. When the Mysore ruler fell; he had no qualms of
conscience in sharing with the British the territories of his “ally”
and co-religionist. The Marathas invariably looked upon the
Nizam as their feudatory. When Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-
General, suggested an aliance between them and the Nizam,
they summarily rejected the proposal. His policy of neutrality
gave them a great opportunity to inflict a crushing defeat on the
Nizam in the famous Battle of Kharda in March 1795. “The
Nizam”, wrote the future Duke of Wellington in 1806, “by the
result of an unfortunate state of hostility with the Marathas,
which ended in battle and peace, or rather capitulation,
concluded at Kharda in 1795, had fallen from the state of a
great and leading power in Hindustan to that of a tributary of the

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Marathas. His ministers were appointed by the Marathas, his
army was disbanded”* *.

The Nizams, therefore, rushed breathlessly to the British,
imploring the foreigners to take Hyderabad under their protective
wing and thus straw-stuff the “sovereignty” of the Asaf Jahi
dynasty. The Treaties of 1799 and 1800 ensured the absolute
subordination of the State to the British power in India. Professor
Edward Thompson, from whose book the above quotation is
taken, does not mince words when he calls attention to the
degradation of Hyderabad. “Its importance”, he says, “was trivial
in the extreme, and its independence completely fictitious, in the
half century before the Mutiny, and perhaps most of all in Lord
Wellesley’s time. No one deviated from an attitude of steady
contempt for it. The State became a happy hunting- ground for
British commercial freebooters, the shady transactions of Palmer
and Company providing a striking example of this fact. Sir
Charles Metcalfe, British Resident in Hyderabad, suppressed the
Palmer evil at a great risk to his career. Commenting on the
Nizam’s restlessness “under our supervision”, Metcalfe declared
that “he might perhaps have been roused into overt opposition,
if he had possessed energy sufficient for so manly a
demonstration”*. Instead, he “abandoned himself to the delights
of the zanana”.

There was an alarming deterioration in the Nizam’s
administration but he came to no harm for this because he was
regarded as a super-feudatory. The fact that the durability of the
State depended, not on the abilities of its ruler, but on the

* The Making of British India by Edward Thompson, Manchester
University Press, 1917, p. 206.

* The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe by John
William Kaye, Volume I, Smith Elder, 1858, pp. 363, 388.

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K. M. Munshi

protective armour furnished by the British was repeatedly
brought home to the Nizams. “The two great Mohamedan States
of Oudh and Hyderabad”, wrote Sir Alfred Lyall, “were
remarkably weak in proportion to their territory and revenue;
they carried little weight in the political balance; and the chief
concern of the British Government was to prevent their premature
dissolution”#. Oudh was annexed in 1856 but Hyderabad
escaped such a well-deserved fate. Its assistance to the British
during the formidable uprising of 1857 ensured its continued
existence. The role played by the princes during that critical
period was a revelation to the foreign Government. Thenceforward
the abolition of the states for any reason was abandoned for ever.

The Nizam became the most pampered feudatory of the
Raj. His generosity to his protectors was proverbial, “Nizzy
pays for everything” became a common saying among his
exploiters. He received imperial patronage in various ways. The
Quarterly Review acclaimed him as “the greatest Mahomedan
power in India”. The “Faithful Ally” of the Raj was dignified in
1918 with the tittle of “His Exalted Highness” while the rulers
of other states were mere “Highness”. The Nizam’s repeated
attempts to secure the rendition of Berar were firmly turned
down. Lord Curzon, how the ever, soothed his ruffled feelings
in 1903 by allowing the heir- apparent of Hyderabad to call
himself the Prince of Berar. The Nizam was profoundly thankful
for this empty generosity.

But such favours did not and could not improve the political
status of the Nizam which was one of distinct subordination to
the Paramount Power. All the principalities that survived British
conquest were treated alike to ensure their absolute loyalty to

#The Rise and Expanion of the British Dominion in India by Sir Alfred
Lyall, John Murray, 1907, p. 228.

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147

the Raj. A British authority declared: “The differentiation of
states as allied, tributary, created or protected is illusory. All are
alike respected and protected The Nizam was thus treated
as primes inter parse among the protected Princes only in
unimportant matters. Interference in his domestic concerns
began from the time Hyderabad established its political relations
with the British. For instance, in 1835, 1867 and 1897, the ruler
was asked by the British Indian Government to give good and
efficient government to his people and to manage the State’s
finances competently. A few months after the accession of Mir
Usman Ali Khan, the last Nizam, in 1911, he was warned by
the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, that he was “on his trial for two
years, at the end of which it would be just as easy for the
Government of India to appoint a Council of Regency as now”.

This man, who entertained overweening political ambitions,
was warned twice by the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, in 1919
that intervention by the Paramount Power would be inevitable
if he failed to administer the State well. The Viceroy declared
emphatically, “I cannot tolerate misrule”. The Nizam, who
claimed that his State was an independent “country”, was not
free to appoint his own ministers. Almost from the beginning of
Hyderabad’s relations with the British, ministers were imposed
on its rulers. Mir Alam, Raja Chandu Lai, Sar Salar Jung, Sar
Salar Jung II, Vikarulmulk, Sir Krishna Pershad, Sir Ali Imam,
and Sir Akbar Hydari were all nominated by the British Indian
Government to govern the State. Usman Ali Khan admitted in
his memorandum of July 28, 1918, that he could not appoint a
minister without consulting the British Resident and without the
consent of the Government of India.

*The Protected Princes of India by Sir William Lee- Warner, Macmillan,
1894, p. 49.

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K. M. Munshi

Indeed, till the lapse of Crown Paramountcy, the Nizam
was never allowed to forget his true position. Lord Reading’s
rejoinder of March 27, 1926 to Mir Usman Ali Khan’s
assertions on the Berar question is memorable. The Viceroy
declared: “I will merely add that the title “Faithful Ally” which
your Exalted Highness enjoys has not the effect of putting your
Government in a category separate from that of other states
under the paramountcy of the British Crown”. In the same year,
the British Resident in Hyderabad drew up a memorandum
stating the correct constitutional position of the State. The
importance of this less widely known document warrants a
somewhat detailed reference to it. It says : “There can be no
doubt that it (Hyderabad) owes its very existence to the British
connection. The Asafia family had not taken strong root in the
Deccan in 1 800; in point of fact, it may be said that it has never
ceased to be foreign. Without the British, it must have relied on
the handful of Muslims domiciled in the State,
a forlorn hope against Maratha resurgence. Left entirely to
himself it is doubtful if the present Nizam would be able to
maintain himself for any length of time”.

Calling attention to the polyglot composition of the State,
the perceptive author of the document said that the strong move
of the three linguistic regions — Andhra, Marathwada and
Karnataka — to break away from the Nizam’s control could be
neutralised only by good government. The Resident “regretfully”
observed that the ruler showed no inclination at all to soften his
“unchecked absolutism” in the government of his State. About
the constitutional status of the Nizam, the document pointed out:
“The limitations on internal sovereignty which paramountcy
implies have been shown to exit as fully developed as
elsewhere”. The Resident categorically rejected the Nizam’s
plea for restoring to his State the position which it was claimed
to hold before entering into political relations with the British.

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149

He said that without British protection, the people of the State
would soon “sweep away” the unpopular Government. He
declared with absolute finality: “It is in fact impossible, treaty or
no treaty, to allow an unfettered despotism to be set up in
Hyderabad”. The Nizam’s claim to pre-existing sovereignty
was, as we saw earlier, a myth.

The Nizam rashly brushed aside all these irrefutable facts of
history when he declared that after British withdrawl Hyderabad
would opt for complete independence. He took this stand by
calling attention to the British Cabinet Memorandum of May
1946. In a firman issued on June 12, 1947, he claimed that
“the result in law of the departure of the paramount power in the
near future will be that I shall become entitled to resume the
status of an independent sovereign”. This was a patently absurd
surd contention. His ancestor, Qamaruddin, was only a subedar
of the Moghul Emperors. He and his successors would have
been dislodged from power if the Marathas had willed it and if
the Nizams had not secured the protection of the British. So at
no time was Hyderabad an independent or substantive State.
The Nizam could not, therefore, falsify history by making
preposterous claims about the status of his dynasty. Soon after
India became independent, the Government asked him to bring
his State into the new Dominion. His plea for two months’ time
to consider the issue was readily conceded. After a good deal
of humming and hawing and with no intention of honouring his
commitments, Mir Usman Ali Khan signed the Standstill
Agreement on November 29, 1947. Despite the extremely
favourable terms granted to him, he was determined to ignore
the Agreement in pursuit of the mirage of “independent
sovereignty”.

Before making an assessment of the magnitude of the task
that confronted Munshi as India’s Agent-General in Hyderabad,

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a few facts about the State would be relevant. The State was
the biggest of its kind in India and, with an area of 82,698
square miles, it was larger in extent than England and Scotland
put together. Hyderabad is landlocked and constitutes the
“belly” of the Indian Union. The State had a population of
16,338,534, of whom the Hindus were 13,310,045 and the
Muslims 2,097,475. It consisted of three main linguistic areas.
Telangana, which during the twilight of the Nizam’s regime,
became the hot-bed of communism, covered almost half the
State, with Telugu as the mother tongue of its nine million
people. Marathwada was the next largest region where four
million people spoke Marathi, The third area was a chunk from
Karnataka and was inhabited by more than two million
Kannada-speaking people. Over this multilingual realm an
autocrat presided, his Government being bolstered up by a
“fascist minority”. The State was rich in natural but unexploited
resources while its mler was reputed to be the richest man in the
world. An oppressive feudal system had reduced the peasantry
to absolute misery, thus paving the way for communism to gain
ascendancy in districts where there was abysmal poverty. The
administration was so deeply impregnated with nepotism,
bribery and corruption that some observers felt that revolutionary
changes alone could purify it. This dismal situation was rendered
worse by the unbridled activities of Razakars, a large band of
armed desperadoes who practised extensive terrorism in
support of their Ala Hazrat; the Nizam. The generalissimo of
these violent hooligans was Kasim Razvi, an outsider.

Munshi's first and only encounter with His Exalted Highness
Mir Usman Ali Khan the Seventh before the latter’s downfall was
remarkably unproductive. The thought of meeting a man of such
wide reputation was for the Indian representative “mildly exciting”.
Accompanied by the State's Prime Minister, Mir Laik Ali, Munshi

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151

called on the ruler on January 9, 1948, at his residence in King
Kothi. What he saw in the palace is best narrated in Munshi’s
own words : “As we stepped out of the car, I saw a thin old man
with a stoop standing on the verandah. He was wearing a faded
fez, a moth-eaten muffler, an old sherwani and a pyjma which had
last been pressed when they had first come of the tailor’s shop.
It was difficult for me to place this man correctly. But Laik Ali’s
very low and respectful bow in the appropriate Hyderabad style
left no room for doubt. I stood in the presence of the Exalted”.

It was not Munshi alone who was amazed at the appearance
and apparel of the Nizam. Others were similarly taken aback.
Alan Campbell-Johnson, who had accompanied Lord
Mountbatten to India to assist him in the epic disengagement
operations, called on the Nizam in Hyderabad on May 15, 1948.
He writes: “Mir Laik Ali stepped forward to introduce me to His
Exalted Highness, who was sitting almost invisible on a large
settee. I was staggered by his thread-bare appearance, and for
the instant failed to realise I was in his presence, but I pulled
myself together in time to greet him with fitting courtesy”. The
visitor noticed that the Hyderabad ruler was physically decrepit
but mentally alert and in full command of his faculties. He was
“arrogant and narrow, but on his home ground formidable”. He
was unyielding and aggressive and dismissed the other princes as
mere noblemen to whom some “courtesies” were due!* While
scrupulously avoiding any discussion of the Indo-Hyderabad
issue with Munshi, the Nizam told him that he had conveyed his
terms to the Government of India. What those terms were and
how extravagant they were will be discussed presently.
His talk with Munshi was rambling and embraced
a number of irrelevant subjects.

* Mission with Mountbatten by Alan Campbell-Johnson, Robert Hale,
1951, pp. 328-30.

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K. M. Munshi

The Nizam believed that he had powerful support in his
challenge to the Indian Government. The submission of his
dynasty to British domination had lasted so long that he refused
to believe that there could be an end to the arrangement. At a
banquet given to the last British Resident on the night of August
14, 1947, he said: “It is still my desire and the desire of
Hyderabad to remain within the Family of Nations known as the
British Commonwealth. After all these years of friendship, I am
confident that the ties which bind Hyderabad to Britain will not be
severed”. Evidently, for this man Britain was nearer than India,
which, in his eyes was perhaps a foreign country. The outgoing
Resident, Herbert, lost nothing by mouthing a few platitudes. He
said: “I join with your Exalted Highness in the hope that a new
relationship between them (Hyderabad and Great Britain) may
soon be created and may prove as enduring as that which is
passing away”. The Resident was prophetic. He did not anticipate
that the Government of free India would last long so that it
would not be long befofe he could stage a come-back. He did
everything in his power to damage the interests of the Indian
Government. Besides destroying the Residency files,
he handed over three military barracks to the Nizam. The latter
was not slow in out-Heroding Herod. He declared “When the
British go from India, I shall become an independent sovereign”.*
A number of British nationals, including a couple of journalists,
who had found their occupation gone in India, made common
cause with the Nizam and assisted him in his military preparations
and propaganda against this country. Perhaps, such support
emboldened him to defy New Delhi.

The partition of India on religious grounds was another
reason for the Hyderabad ruler to embark upon his foolhardy

* The End of an Era: Elyderabad Memories by K. M. Munshi,
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1957, p. 56.

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course. The birth of Pakistan on the basis of the preposterous
two-nation theory was little short of a miracle and had created
among the Muslims of the sub-continent an unprecedented
awareness of their solidarity. The State had an international
reputation on account of the religion of its ruler and it was
wishfully thought that the entire Islamic world would outraged if
he was deposed from his position. He found in Jinnah, the
founder of Pakistan, a staunch supporter of his “cause”. Earlier,
the formidable Qaid-i-Azam had been shown his place by the
Nizam when the former sat before him with outstretched legs
and with a cigar in his mouth. He angrily asked the visitor: “Do
you know who I am? Is this the way you behave towards the
Nizam of Hyderabad”# Jinnah promptly corrected himself, but
the storm having burst, apology could not ease the situation.

The antagonists later buried their hatchet in pursuance of the
common goal of disruption Indian unity. On June I, 1948,
Jinnah, who was now the Governor-General of Pakistan,
declared that Hyderabad was an “independent sovereign state”
and that “not only the Muslims of Pakistan but Muslims all the
world over fully sympathised with Hyderabad in its struggle”.
His utterances on the Hyderabad issue were an outrage on all
canons of international law and morality and constituted a gross
interference in the domestic affairs of India. Even so, there was
no intrinsic value in them. Earlier, when he was asked by the
Nawab of Chhatari, who was then the Prime Minister of
Hyderabad, whether Pakistan would be ready to assist the
State against India, his reply was in the negative. The Nizam
was, however, past seeing reason. He gave a loan of Rs. 20
crores to Pakistan which was against the spirit of the Standstill
Agreement. His first aim was to acquire independent sovereignty.

# My Public Life by Sir Mirza M. Ismail, G. Allen and Unwin, 1954,
pp. 98-99.

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If he was foiled in this attempt, he was prepared to join his
State to Pakistan, no matter whether such action was in
violation of geographical compulsions.

The Nizam was a self-willed autocrat who loved to live in
the dreamland of his own creation, but until he came under the
influence of rabid communalists, he chose his counsellors wisely.
In August 1946, he replaced the Nawab of Chhatari by Sir
Mirza Ismail as his Prime Minister. Sir Mirza was a first rate
administrator who had made a name as the Dewan of Mysore,
the most enlightened and the second largest principality in India.
He had also served in Jaipur, the premier Rajasthan State and
was instrumental in introducing many progressive measures
there. Many right-thinking persons in Hyderabad, including the
local Congress leaders, rejoiced at his coming and hoped that
a new era would soon dawn in that benighted State. All such
expectations were, however, soon belied since the communal
diehards who were a power in the State, were solid ranged
against, him. Tendering his resignation to his office as Premier
on May 15, 1947, Mirza complained that he was “opposed at
every turn by a certain section of the local Mussalmans who, in
my opinion, are bent on a course that is suicidal to the State”.

The good-natured Nawab of Chhatari was reinstated in his
position, but he was too powerless to prevent the Nizam from
rushing to his doom. In July 1947, he led a delegation to New
Delhi, with Sir Walter Monckton, Sir Sultan Ahmed and Nawab
Ali Yavar Jung, to negotiate a settlement on issue of Hyderabad’s
accession to India and had secured favourable terms for the
Nizam. A draft agreement finalised on October 18. Nine days
later, when the delegation attempted to return to Delhi with the
Nizam’s signature on the agreement, the house in which its
members were put up was surrounded by a menacing mob of
Razakars, with the co-operation of the police, to prevent them

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from going to the Indian, capital. The Nizam sent for their
leader, Kasim Razvi, who persuaded him to disslve the old
delegation and appoint a new one under the leadership of
Nawab Moin Nawaz Jung, a clever Ittehad fanatic and a hater
of India. The new delegation included Abdur Rahim, another
Ittehad extremist. The Nawab of Chhatari, a zamindar from the
United Provinces, now called Uttar Pradesh, shook the
Hyderabad dust off his feet on November 1, 1947, and
returned to his home province.

Sir Sultan Ahmed, a man of moderate views, soon
discovered that no task was more thankless than that of Adviser
to the Nizam. Going back to his home outside Hyderabad
Sir Sultan wrote: “Unfortunately, the extreme Muslim opposition
represented by the Ittehad, hardened, and the leading part in
this opposition was played by Moin Nawaz Jung and Syed
Taquiuddin, the Bihari Secretary in the Government of
Hyderabad, whohad been dismissed by Sir Mirza. It was
suspected that the opposition was also receiving great financial
support from Mir Laik Ali, brother-in-law of Moin Nawaz
Jung”. Nawab Ali Yavar Jung, who was later given positions of
great responsibility and dignity in free India, was also disliked
by the Ittehad clique. He politely declined to proceed abroad,
along with Mir Laik Ali, to negotiate a “defensive alliance”
with Britain and America. Like his sober colleagues in the
Nizam’s service, he deplored the obstinacy of the ruler in not
facing the realities of the situation. He was a Shia and when he
resigned, a regular drive was launched to get rid of the officers
of that sect.

Mir Laik Ali, a convinced Ittehad man, was installed in the
seat vacated by the Nawab of Chhatari. Munshi had known him
before as his client. His hope that he could establish cordial
relations with the Hyderabad Premier and thus smoothen the

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path for its accession to India was soon dashed to the ground.
The two certainly met often, but on this issue there was no
common ground between them. Laik Ali’s one foot was in
Hyderabad and another in Pakistan. Jinnah was his beau ideal ,
with whom he had established close relations and was prepared
to go to any length to please his exemplar and his Dominion. He
refused to see the writing on the wall. Even when he knew that
resistance to India was futile and disastrous, he told Munshi that
it was impossible for him to reconcile himself to the thought of
Hyderabad’s accession to this country. When told about the
dire consequences of such stubbornness, he replied: “Mr.
Munshi, there is such a thing like Sahadat martyrdom”. He
derived his courage to tempt fate from the support he received
from the Ittehad and its “sword-arm”, the Razakars.

A brief reference to these lawless hordes is relevant. The
Majlis-i-Ittehad-ul-Mussulmeen, Ittehad for short, came into
existence in 1926, its founder being Mohmud Nawaz Khan, a
retired official. Its aim was to unite the Muslims of the State in
order to support the Nizam and to perpetuate the hegemony of
the minority community in it. The Khan hoped to transform
Hyderabad into a Muslim-majority State by means of large-
scale conversions. The Nizam found in another man, Bahadur
Khan, a zealot in the cause of sustaining his supremacy and
raised him to the rank of the aristocracy by calling him Bahadur
Yar Jung. He duly made his protege the head of the Ittehad. The
new champion of communalism was impartial in his hostility to
all progressive elements in the State and swore enmity to wards
forward-looking and secular-minded Hindus and Muslims alike.
When he died in 1944, the Nizam paid him a remarkable
tribute: “He was”, wrote His Exalted Highness, “a gift from the
hand of the Almighty for the sake of protecting the rights of the
elect community (Muslims)”. Two years later, Kasim Razvi took

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charge of the fanatical organisation whose headquarters was
ironically called Dar-ul-Salam or Abode of Peace.

Razvi was an abnormal creature. He was the product of
Lucknow and Aligarh Universities but his megalomania had
driven all traces of culture and commonsense out of him. He
became a fanatic and an uninhibited sadist and cultivated the art
of rousing the rabble by his intemperate and mendacious
outbursts against India and her respected leaders. He armed a
large band of desperate men with lethal weapons and called
them Razakars who, besides terrorising the Hindus in the State,
inflicted barbarities on a number of border villages in the Indian
Union. Razvi, who gradually established his ascendancy over
the mind of the Nizam by judiciously feeding his vanity, became
intoxicated with power. The Nizam knew that the man was a
charlatan and once called him a “blackguard” and a “tupenny-
halfpenny” fellow and yet he did not choose to show Razvi his
since both cherished grandiose ideas about the future of
Hyderabad. The demented condottiere expected Munshi to
call on him when he arrived in Hyderabad on January 5, 1948,
to take up his new responsibilities there. Munshi disdained to do
anything of that kind, dismissing him as a “hunchback Fuehrer”.
Alan Campell-Johnson has drawn a vivid picture of Razvi
whom he calls “the complete fanatic”. His stares frightened
friends and foes alike but there was a streak of absurdity about
him which made it difficult to take him seriously. He looked like
a “blend of Charlie Chaplin and a minor prophet”.*

And yet this absurd man, whose rightful place should have
been either on the gallows or in a prison cell, wielded
tremendous influence in the affairs of Hyderabad and was in no
small measure responsible for its ruler’s downfall. In January

* Mission with Mountbatten by Alan Campbell-Johnson, p. 332.

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K. M. Munshi

1948, when Munshi went to Hyderabad, the strength of the
Razakars was 30,000, but by July- August of the same year it
rose to more than 100,000, the recruitment target being five
times that number. The function of the rapidly expanding
organisation was to terrorise all those who loved their
motherland, irrespective of their religious affiliations, and to
transform Hyderabad into a “country of the faithful”. Rev. W.
Lee Cato Edwards, Head of the Diocese of Medak, Church of
South India, met Munshi in August 1948, and bitterly complained
to him about the Razakars atrocities in the countryside of the
State. The villages were looted and their inhabitants attacked.
The weapon of bribery and intimidation was freely used to
coerce the Christians into toeing the Razakar line.#

Razvi’s sole aim was to prevent Hyderabad from having
any manner of political relationship with India and to reduce the
Standstill Agreement of November 1947 to a dead-letter.
Earlier, he had made a desparate bid to prevent such an
agreement being concluded. He told the Nizam: “If Ala Hazrat
signs the Standstill Agreement, it will mean the end of
Hyderabad”. His public utterances were as unbridled as his
misdeeds. In his eyes, the Hindus were “barbarians”. He
threatened the Indian Union that there would be mass
massacres if Hyderabad was invaded. He made a public appeal
to the Muslims of the Deccan and to Jinnah and Pakistan to
come to the aid of his Ala Hazrat. At the same time, he
overwhelmed Indian leaders with vile abuses. There was indeed
no restraint in his utterances. On one occasion, he said:
“Hyderabad will shortly recover the ceded districts and the day
is not far off when the waves of the Bay of Bengal will be
washing the feet of our sovereign who will be called not only the

# The End of an Era by K. M. Munshi, p. 184.

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Nizam of Hyderabad and Berrar but also of the Northern
Circars”. He was, he claimed, “rewriting the map of India by
bringing together a union of Jamna and Musi. We are the
grandsons of Mohamed Ghazni and sons of Babar. When
determined, we shall fly the Asafjahi flag over the Red Fort in
Delhi”. The admirers of this lunatic conferred on him the title of
Mujahid-e-Azam, the Great Fighter of the Holy War! When
Razvi met Sardar Patel in Delhi, he ranted before him in his
customary manner, saying: “We shall fight and die to the last
man for Hyderabad”. The great man calmly replied: “How can
I stop you from committing suicide if you want to?”

Probably, the November Standstill Agreement would never
have materialised were it not for the patient and persevering
efforts of Sir Walter Monckton, the Nizam's Constitutional
Adviser. Sir Walter was a distinguished lawyer, and an able and
accomplished negotiator. Munshi points out that, as counsel, this
British lawyer was very much in demand by the solicitors of the
Bombay High Court in appeals to the Privy Council. Some of
the cases Munshi had conducted in Bombay were, “admirably
handled by him in appeal to the Privy Council”. To these
distinguished qualities were added Sir Walter’s close friendship
with Lord Mountbatten who had assumed the responsibility for
grasping the Hyderabad nettle on behalf of the Indian Union.
Besides being prepared to go a long way to accommodate his
lawyer friend, the Govemer-General was anxious to settle the
Hyderabad question almost at all costs before leaving India in
June 1948. Sir Walter was not happy with his assignment.
Apart’ from the fact that he felt insulted by Razvi’s insinuations
and innuendoes, he found in the Nizam an impossible client.
And yet he persisted and succeeded in securing for Hyderabad
unique concessions as embodied in the Standstill Agreement.
Later, when he found the Nizam unyielding even after larger
concessions had been won from the Union Government,

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Sir Walter decided to return to England. Asked by his
intransigent client when he would return, he replied: “I hope you
will still be the Nizam when I come again”.*

It was clear from the outset that the Nizam had no intention
at all of giving an honest trial to the November agreement. He
was advised that what was arrived at was only a temporary
arrangement in order to get “a full and comparative peace
during which, as we have often said, we can see how the two
Dominions get along and how far we can prepare ourselves
for a more genuine display of independence later on” .# But
one year was too long a period for the Nizam to wait for
donning the robes of royalty. Isolated from the mainstream of
Indian national life and continually fed with the Razakar
propaganda about the invincibility of his position, he believed
that India was too weak to be able to bridle his overweening
ambitions. Evidence mounted rapidly to prove that the Laik Ali
Government, which was hand in glove with Kasim Razvi and his
retainers, was determined to treat the November document as
a scrap of paper. To counter this perfidy, the Indian attitude
began to harden. New Delhi demanded the suppression of the
Razakars, the introduction of representative government in the
State, and the conduct of a plebiscite on the accession issue.

Laik Ali, who wanted the Indo-Hyderabad relations to be
regulated on the basis of an Instrument of Association and not
in terms of accession, agreed at a conference on May 26,
1948, to a new arrangement. According to it, defence external
affairs and communications should vest in the Union Government
which should be untrammelled in adopting suitable legislation for

* Op. cit pp. 174-75.

# White Paper on Hyderabad, p. 23, (Italics Not mine).
11-473 M. of I&B/ND/8 1 .

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the pur pose. The Nizam’s armed forces should be limited to
20,000 men, of whom 60 per cent should be non-Muslims. The
State should have no political relations with any foreign power.
An interim government should be set up with not less than
4 per cent non-Muslims as ministers. By January 1, 1949 a
Constituent Assembly should be convenced 60 per cent of
whose members should be non-Muslims. This scheme was
drawn up by V. P. Menon and was accepted by Laik Ali during
his deliberations with Lord Mountbatten and Nehru. Sardar
Patel, who was convalescing at Mussoorie, approved it,
but insisted that it should be accepted by the Hyderabad
Government within twenty-four hours of its Prime Minister
returning to his State.

Back in the State capital, Laik Ali saw no reason why he
should honour his pledge! At a dinner with Munshi on May 28,
he spoke at length about his Delhi discussions and made an
impassioned plea to his guest for “co-operation”. He said: “I am
making a great experiment. I want the bond between India and
Hyderabad cemented. Give me a chance to show that
Hyderabad can be a source of strength to India. I know you are
very critical of me. A ou have come in my way more than once.
This time, please help me. Please tell Sardar not to come in the
way and for Heaven s sake do not come in the way yourself.”
Munshi was surprised at this impassioned plea and replied that
he would certainly help if Hyderabad was sincere in seeking
Indian friendship.

There was absoli tely no scope for further negotiations, but
Mountbatten ’s anxiety to settle the issue before returning home
and the pertinacious efforts of Sir Walter Monckton to find a
modus vivendi induced the Indian Cabinet to agree to the
resumption of the talks. On June 6, Sir Walter and Mir Laik Ali
went to New Delhi for the purpose and, after protracted

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discussions, two drafts, one giving the heads of agreement, and
another about the contents of th e firman to be issued by the
Nizam, were prepared. On June 7, Sardar Patel, who was
thoroughly fed up with the Nizam’s intransigence and dilatory
tactics, wrote to Mountbatten telling him about the futility of
merely presenting formulae for a settlement. The various violent
incidents in Hyderabad and on its borders had thoroughly
roused Indian opinion against it. The Nizam must agree to
accede to the Indian Union on the three subjects and to
introduce “undiluted responsible government with a provision
for a satisfactory interim arrangement anticipating and facilitating
such introduction”.

The Governor-General could see that both Nehru and Patel
were losing their patience over the Hyderabad issue. He could
also see that the draft agreement prepared on June 6 embodied
the Indian Government’s last offer. On June 12, Sir Walter
Monckton reported that the two documents were endorsed by
both the Nizam and his Executive Council. Three days later,
Mountbatten wrote to the Nizam making an earnest appeal to
him to ratify the documents the same day. “The situation”, he
wrote, “has not been easy to hold here, and we are all agreed
that the matter must be concluded today Tuesday, without fail
in the interests of good feeling and friendship”. He told the
Nizam that he had only five days left in India. Although he
would be extremely busy till his departure, he could still find
time to go to Hyderabad. “I am so anxious”, he said, “to be
able to express the goodwill of India in person to you before I
go that I will somehow find the time to get down even if it is
only for two or three hours, for I should much like to renew our
acquaintance before I leave”. The Nizam failed to realise that he
could never have received such a letter from the Crown
Representative, his overlord, during the British period.

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The June draft agreement, which Mountbatten asked the
Nizam to sign forthwith, was, like the earlier documents of its
kind, most generous to Hyderabad. It committed the State
Government to pass legislation similar to that of the Government
of India in matters pertaining to defence, external affairs and
communications. The strength of the Hyderabad Army should
not be more than 20,000 while the State’s irregular forces,
should be limited to 8,000. The Indian Government undertook
to supply arms, ammunition, and equipment to the Hyderabad
Army on the scale prescribed in the Agreement. The Indian
armed forces would not be stationed in Hyderabad except in an
emergency and would be withdrawn as soon as the necessity
ceased. Hyderabad’s external relations would be conducted by
New Delhi but the State would be free to establish trade
agencies in foreign countries. According to the draft firman, the
Nizam agreed to hold a plebiscite in his State on the question
of its accession to India and would abide by the people’s
verdict. A Constituent Assembly would be convened in early
1949 with a view to introducing responsible government in the
State. A new interim Government would be formed in
consultation with the leaders of the major political parties.

The concessions wrung by the Nizam from an unwilling
Indian Government were, according to any assessment, far
reaching, but so perverse was the politics of the State and his
own thinking that they failed to appease him and his rabid
counsellors. On June 19, Munshi had a fairly long discussion on
Hyderabad with Mountbatten on the eve of his departure from
India. The British statesman told him that he had had many jolts
in his life but the Hyderabad episode gave him the greatest
shock. “I could not help reflecting once again”, wrote Munshi,
“that a little more sternness on his (Mountbatten ’s) part, and a
little less dependence on Sir Walter Monckton’s advocacy,
would have brought accession in March”. The retirement of

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Mountbatten from India on June 21 and the departure of Sir
Walter two days earlier brought to a welcome end all
uncertainties about the Indian Government’s attitude towards
the Nizam and his pretensions. It was absurd for him to claim,
by ignoring the whole range of historical facts, that his State was
unique among the Indian principalities. It was equally absurd on
his part to dismiss other rulers, including those of such important
States as Mysore, Gwalior and Baroda, as mere nobles while
claiming the attributes of royalty for himself. Sardar Patel, who
now handled the Hyderabad question, was the last man to be
deluded by such fables.

The Sardar was convinced that so long as Hyderabad
remained under the Nizam’s control, the State would be “a
cancer in the belly of India”. He decided to rid the country of
this dangerous disease. He kept himself in close touch with
Munshi to be able to feel the pulse of the State. When Munshi
told him about some minor attempts in Hyderabad to bring
about a settlement as envisaged by Mountbatten, he replied:
“The settlement has gone to England”! In a hardhitting speech
on July 15, 1948, he declared. “Many have asked me the
question what is going to happen to Hyderabad. They forget
that when I spoke at Junagadh I said openly that if Hyderabad
did not behave properly it would have to go the way Junagadh
did. Those words still-stand and I stand by those words. The
former Governor-General, Lord Mountbatten, thought that he
would be able to secure a peaceful settlement. I let him do so.
He tried his best But I should like to make one thing clear....
The terms and the talks which Mountbatten had have gone
with him. Now the settlement with the Nizam will have to
be on the lines of other settlements with the States. No help

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165

from outside on which he seems to rest his pathetic hopes
would avail him.”* (Italics mine). That was the type of
language Indian opinion had long waited to hear from the
Government leaders.

The Bourbons in Hyderabad were, however, determined to
learn nothing and forget nothing. The Nizam was not prepared
to shed the illusion that the British could still help him. On July
4, he appealed to the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, to
intervene. Jawaharlal Nehru also wrote to the British Prime
Minister apprising him of the real position. Attlee told the Nizam
that he was unable to intervene. “The Labour Government”,
Munshi wrote, “throughout had played and were playing a very
honourable part in the matter of India”. But the stand of the
Tories, most of whom were arch imperialists, was different.
They could not forgive the Congress for hastening the end of
their Raj in India. They described India’s belated punitive action
against the Nizam’s Government in September as an “act of
aggression”. It was because of the encouragement given by the
international reactionaries that it summoned courage to take its
spurious case to the Security Council of the United Nations.
Revealing his Government’s move in the State Legislative
Assembly on August 2, Laik Ali spoke the language of a martyr.
He said: “They (the Government of India) may coerce us. They
may subject us to any ordeals. They may overrun us by their
military strength. We cannot give up our stand”. The Nizam
knew that the collision course he had adopted was suicidal, but
it was now too late for him to retrace his steps. While dining
with Munshi on August 9, Laik Ali told him categorically that
accession to India was impossible.

* On Indian Problems, Sardar Patel’s Speeches, p. 40.

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K. M. Munshi

The Nizam had prepared himself for a show-down with India
and had spent as much as Rs. 22 crores on war-like preparations.
Few in Hyderabad believed that resistance to Indian military
action would succeed. Long before hostilities broke out, the
State’s prospects were discussed at the highest level. When El-
Edroos, Commander-in-Chief of the Hyderabad army, was
asked how long his forces could hold out, he replied: “Not more
than four days”. The Nizam intervened with the astounding
observation: “Not more than two”. And yet he allowed himself to
be dragged by the collar to his doom. The Indian Prime Minister
told the national legislature on September 7 that his Government
had made a final demand on the Nizam to ban the Razakar
organisation and to agree to the reposting of Indian troops in
Hyderabad. By way of reply to Nehru’s plea, the Nizam ordered
the mobilization of his armed forces the same day, thus throwing
down the gauntlet to the Indian Government. The new Governor-
General, C. Rajagopalachari’s earnest appeals to him to see
reason before it was too late were ignored.

India was convinced that it would be impossible to bring the
Nizam to his senses without decisive military action, but the
partition of the country had caused disarray in its affairs,
including in its armed forces. Some twenty thousand tried
soldiers were, however, assembled and ordered on September
13, 1948, to march into Hyderabad under the command of
Major-General J. N. Chaudhuri. Ranged against the Indian
army were the Nizam’s troops numbering twenty-two thousand.
They were assisted by numerous armed bandits, calling
themselves Razakars. The Hyderabad Radio was untiring in
putting out fictitious reports of resounding victories for the State
Forces. It chanted “Insha allah! The Hyderabad army is
winning rapid successes”. There was no limit to the mendacious
propaganda. The world was told that the Nizam’s victorious
army was approaching Goa! In Pakistan, whose Qaid-i-Azam’s

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death was announced on September 12, the bereaved “nation’
derived much comfort from the glad tidings about India’s
“humiliation”.

The facts were, however, entirely different. The Hyderabad
Army never gave a determined stand against the Indian forces
even once. A large number of its men, sworn to support the
Nizam’s non-existent sovereignty, shed their uniforms and
disappeared. Even senior commanders deserted their posts and
yet chose to send deceitful reports to their headquarters. The
Indian Army’s move towards the State capital was swift and
without any serious opposition. On September 17, its
Commander received the surrender of the Hyderabad Army so
that the whole operation against the Nizam was over in 108
hours, thus confirming the historical truth that the durability of
the Asaf Jahi dynasty had lain not in its military prowess, but in
the power of its protectors. The panick-stricken Razakars,
whose warlike ardour had never gone beyond streets and
alleys, were hunted down like vermin wherever they were
caught. Their bellicose leader, Kasim Razvi, deserved to be
hanged, but the kindly military Government of India in
Hyderabad spared him. He was arrested and sentenced to eight
year’s rigorous imprisonment in a dacoity case. On his release
in 1959, he ran away to Pakistan where he died some years
later in well-deserved obscurity.

Meanwhile, the Nizam was making desperate attempts to
save himself from certain destruction. He sent a message to C.
Rajagopalachari, the Governor-General, saying that the Laik Ali
Government had resigned, that he had ordered the cease-fire to
his Army and that he was allowing the Indian troops to occupy
Bolarum and the Secunderabad barracks. He invited Munshi to
meet him in his King Kothi Palace. When the Indian Agent-
General called on him, he found His Exalted Highness in a state

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of collapse. The change over from arrogance to obsequiousness
was complete. He agreed to Munshi’s suggestion to go on the
air to announce the surrender of his State to India. He told his
‘‘beloved people” on the radio that the Laik Ali Government had
gone out and that he had issued orders for the immediate
release of Swami Ramananda Tirtha, President of the State
Congress. He took the opportunity of acknowledging the help
Munshi had rendered him on the occasion. He also announced
the withdrawal of Hyderabad’s complaint to the Security
Council of the United Nations.

Munshi also made a brief statement on the Hyderabad
Radio. He expressed his happiness that the Nizam had ordered
the cease-fire and told the people of the State that they were
one with the rest of the Indian population. “We are one people”
he said, “and we cannot be parted”. He reminded his listeners
that the Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, had repeatedly
declared that India was a secular State. It made no distinction
between one Indian and another on grounds of religion or race.
He assured the people of Hyderabad that their safety and rights
would be fully protected and warned the law-breakers that their
activities would not be tolerated. Munshi further said: “The
Indian Army is an army of friends to rescue the life of
Hyderabad from the nightmare of the last twelve months. I
appeal to Hindus and Muslims both to act with mutual trust and
goodwill to enable Hyderabad to achieve its honoured place as
an integral part of India”.* Laik Ali, who, along with Kasim
Razvi, had played the most sinister role in hastening the disgrace
and downfall of their master, was arrested in Hyderabad after
police action. He managed to escape from house-arrest to
Pakistan in March, 1950.

* The End of an Era by K. M. Munshi, pp. 230-32.

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169

The Nizam was treated with the utmost consideration by
the Indian Government. Besides allowing him to retain his
immense wealth, he and his family were permitted to enjoy all
the personal privileges, dignities and titles they had enjoyed
before. In addition, with effect from April 1,1950, the Nizam
became entitled to receive annually for his privy purse a sum of
fifty lakhs of rupees during his lifetime. When the Indian
Constitution was brought into force in January 1950, Hyderabad
was given the status of a Part B State, along with Mysore,
Kashmir and seven States’ Union, with the Nizam holding the
position of Rajpramukh in his State. Following the dissolution of
the principalities, a reorganisation of the administrative boundaries
was considered necessary. As pointed out earlier, Hyderabad
had been a tri-lingual region. As a result of the formation of the
States of Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka, the three
linguistic areas were merged into their respective parent states,
thus bringing to an end once and for all the Asaf Jahi dynasty
in the Deccan. Soon after police action, the civil administration
of Hyderabad was put under the charge of D. S. Bakhle, a
civilian from Bombay, who, according to Munshi, worked
wonders in reforming the administration.

Munshi ’s mission in Hyderabad was now over. As Agent-
General there he had to function under grave disadvantages.
Both the Nizam and his Government had virtually isolated him
from the public life in the State. But no discouragement and no
obstacle could prevent him from guarding Indian interests in the
storm-tossed State with the unsleeping eyes of Argus. His
presence in Hyderabad was in itself a source of confidence to
the terrorised people. Sardar Patel, who was responsible for
giving him this assignment, was lull of praise for his performance.
In reply to Munshi’s resignation of November 6, 1948, the
Sardar recalled the unsettled conditions that had existed in
Hyderabad when Munshi went there. He worked “unremittingly

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K. M. Munshi

and with single-minded devotion to duty” to bring about the
State’s integration. “On behalf of the Government”, wrote the
Sardar, “I wish to say that we are deeply conscious of the high

sense of public duty that induced you to accept this office .

On November 21, the States Ministry in its Press Note said
that Munshi had accepted the Hyderabad assignment at
“great personal sacrifice”.

While performing his public duty in Hyderabad, Munshi,
like the rest of his countrymen, suffered a tremendous loss in the
death by assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30,
1948. The news came as a shattering blow to Munshi who
happened to be in New Delhi at that time. He had met the
Mahatma the previous day to apprise him of the developments
in Hyderabad. Essentially a man of reason, Munshi was not a
hero-worshipper, but, so massive and towering was the
Mahatma’s stature and so enduring his achievements that the
younger man could not help regarding him as his idolised leader.
As we have seen in the previous pages, there were occasions
when the two differed, but it was impossible for Munshi to keep
himself away from Gandhi. He used to rush to the Mahatma
whenever he was in difficulty or distress and took refuge in his
counsel as a man takes a plunge into the limpid waters of
Mother Ganga for a refreshing bath. He took a prominent part
in organising the great leader’s last journey. In a tribute of tears,
he wrote : “Sri Krishna had died full of age and divine honours,
but by the arrow of an obscure hunter, Socrates had died of
poison, the victim of the hatred of his own people. Jesus had
died on the cross crucified by the venom of his own people.
Gandhiji also died at the hands of his own people, whom he had
led from darkness to light. But he died at the height of
popularity and power and while enjoying the spiritual leadership, '
not only of India, but of the whole world. He died in a manner
which befitted a spiritual leader of all times, while going to

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prayers, with the name of God on his lips. As he lived, so he
died — with majesty and grace — and the undying halo of a
martyr was about him”.*

Munshi felt greatly relieved when the Hyderabad burden
was taken away from him. With the consent of Sardar Patel, the
Chief Minister of Assam, Gopinath Bardoloi, offered him the
Governorship of that State, but his heart was in the work of the
Constituent Assembly. He declined the offer with thanks and
returned to the labours of constitution-making with his customary
zeal. He told Sardar Patel that be would go back to his legal
profession once the Constitution was adopted.

*Op. Cit. p. 109.

The Constitution

MUNSHI WAS ONE OF THE chief architects of the
Constitution of free India. He was among the most active
members of the Constituent Assembly and served on most of its
important committees. He was eminently qualified to play a
crucial role as constitution-maker. Apart from the fact that he
was an eminent and experienced lawyer, he had made a deep
study of the various instruments of government from the time the
Indian Round Table Conferences were held in London in the
early thirties on the country’s future constitutional set-up.
Besides reflecting a good deal, he had written a lot on the
subject. At the instance of Sardar Patel, he had examined the
legal and constitutional implications of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s
claim on the Indian Government for the retrocession of Berar.
As we saw in an earlier chapter, Munshi, in collaboration with
a few other like-minded lawy low had fought many a battle
royal in various ers, courts during the convulsive “Quit India”
movement in defence of the liberty of the subject. He had thus
acquired valuable experience of the potency of writs as
protectors of personal liberty. As constitutional adviser to a
number of princes, he had acquired a deep insight into the
various aspects of constitution-making. He was also on the
panel of legal experts who advised the Congress in its
negotiations with the British Cabinet Mission in 1946.

In February 1946, the Chief Justice of Bombay High
Court asked Munshi whether he would agree to lead a team of

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lawyers to proceed to Japan in order to prosecute the
Prime Minister of that country for “war crimes”. Apart from
the fact that Munshi disliked any such “post-mortem
condemnation”, it was impossible for him to be away from India
at such an eventful time. On the eighteenth day of that month, he
met Mahatma Gandhi and at his instance rejoined the
Congress which he had left some years before to crusade for
Akhand Hindustan. The resounding success of the Muslim
League in the elections of 1945-46 had convinced him about the
futility of striving for a lost cause. The Mahatma exhorted him
to devote his time and talent to the task of framing a suitable
constitution for the government of free India. On July 10, he
was invited by Nehru to join the Expert Committee appointed
for the purpose. Besides Nehru as Chairman, the Committee
consisted of Sir N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, Professor D. R.
Gadgil, Professor K. T. Shah, Professor Humayun Kabir,
K. Santhanam and Asaf Ali.

Munshi at once became busy and by August 4 his first
draft of the Constituent Assembly’s rules of business was ready.
He applied himself to the even more arduous task of drafting a
full-fledged constitution. In this undertaking he received the
assistance of V. K. Krishna Menon who, however, left for
Enland, leaving the work to be completed all by himself. The
preliminary draft consisted of some fifty articles, including a
Preamble. It laid down that the Union of India should be a
“Democratic Sovereign Republic” and that the sovereign power
should be vested in the people of the country. Commenting on
this exercise in constitution-making, Munshi says that it gave him
a valuable insight into the manner in which the Constituent
Assembly could be helped to face the challenges that confronted
it. He was among the first to realise the need for the Assembly
to assert its right to function as the supreme constitution-making
body. He told the House: “It should be laid down definitely by

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K. M. Munshi

this House that the Constituent Assembly is one and indivisible”.
Such a stand at once reduced to irrelevance the question of the
Muslim League’s entry into the Assembly. A set of rules, based
largely on Munshi ’s draft, was adopted which put an end to all
uncertainties about the sovereign status of the Constituent
Assembly. Rule 7 made this fact absolutely clear.

The framing of the Constitution was essentially
a joint effort. Sir Benegal Narsing Rau, the Assembly’s
Constitutional Adviser, was equipped with a phenomenal
knowledge of constitutional law while his abilities as a draftsman
were equally outstanding. As Law Minister, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
bore the brunt of piloting the Constitution Bill in all its stages in
the Constituent Assembly and fulfilled this task with remarkable
ability and erudition. Nevertheless, a good deal of the burden
fell on Munshi, Sir N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar and Sir Alladi
Krishnaswami Ayyar. The three worked like Trojans in close
co-operation with each other and were acclaimed by the
members of the Assembly as the “Three Musketeers”. As an
administrator, Ayyangar had practical experience of the working
of the government machinery. His wide-ranging mind and his
acute perception were of great value to Munshi in his
undertaking. About Ayyar he has written in superlative terms. He
was indeed “the most eminent lawyer in the Constituent
Assembly”. His industry was “untiring, his knowledge of law
massive and his subtlety keen as a razor’s edge. He had the
photographic memory of a Brahman with a long ancestry of
Samhita Pathis, the reciters of the Vedas”.* Like nearly all the
leading participants in the constitutional debates, Ayyar was
profoundly influenced by the British political system as
propounded by John Stuart Mill and Walter Bagehot.

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 115.

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175

Munshi has drawn brief but penetrating pen-portraits of
the leading framers of the Constitution. He had known Dr.
Sachchidananda Sinha, the temporary Chairman of the
Constituent Assembly, from his student days. Dr. Sinha, who
edited the prestigious Hindustan Review ; had published the
young man’s article besides writing a “nice letter” to him. His
address to the Assembly was both scholarly and stirring.
Commenting on his plea to the members “to build for
immortality”, Munshi wished they could do so. Of Dr. Rajendra
Prasad, who was elected President on December 11, 1946,
Munshi always spoke with deep affection and admiration. On
his assumption of the new office, Dr. Prasad said : “Above all,
what we need is freedom and as someone has said "nothing is
more valuable than the freedom to be free’. Let us hope and
pray that as a result of the labours of the Constituent Assembly
we shall have achieved that freedom and we shall be proud of
it”. There was a galaxy of Congressmen in the Assembly.
Mahatma Gandhi had warned his party men against stultifying
the House by converting it into a one-party body. There were
certainly a number of non-Congress members in it such as the
formidable Dr. Ambedkar and Dr. M. R. Jayakar, but the
Congress claimed as much as 82 per cent of the seats.
A sympathetic interpreter of the Constitution wrote: “The
Assembly was the Congress and the Congress was India”.*
Though exaggerated, his observation portrayed the status
of the constitution-making body.

Commenting on the Congress representatives, Munshi
wrote: “Of this group, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar, Rajendra
Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari and Maulana Azad were the
acknowledged leaders. Acharya Kripalani and Pattabhi

* The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation by Granville
Austin, Oxford, 1946 pp. 8, 9.

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K. M. Munshi

Sitaramayya came next in importance”. Nehru was indeed the
most influential member of the Assembly and was rightly
described as its idealist. The Sardar was ruthlessly realistic and
never allowed himself to be swept off his feet. Munshi wrote:
“Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of a democratic India and Sardar’s
instinctive perception of the sources from which power and
stability sprang provided effective guidelines to us”. Rajendra
Prasad, who presided over the Assembly deliberations with
distinction, was, says Munshi, regarded as a true Gandhian. The
fact that he was the members’ unanimous choice proved his
great popularity. Maulana Azad did not speak much, but
whenever he spoke he did so “with superb self-confidence and
had the mannerism of what he really was a religious teacher”.

C. Rajagopalachari was a man of shrewd “perception
and his “clarity of vision” was an asset to the debates. Acharya
Kripalani spoke eloquently as the custodian of Gandhian
principles. Purushottamdas Tandon, “father of the Hindi
movement”, was widely respected while Pandit Gobind Ballabh
Pant had an “uncanny power of persuasion”. Mrs. Sarojini
Naidu and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan sent the House into raptures
by their matchless eloquence. The eminent economist, Professor
K. T. Shah, played the role of a “one-man opposition” while
H. V. Kamath, who in the prime of his youth had spumed the
prestigious Civil Service, spoke often and with much sense.
Sir V. T. Krishnamachari, an able administrator, and
T. T. Krishnamachari were noted for their ability and eloquence.
Pandit Hridayanath Kunzru, the Liberal leader, spoke with
admirable restraint while K. Santhanam packed a good deal of
thought and study in his speeches.

Pandit Thakurdas Bhargava was a strong defender of
democratic principles, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was
“perhaps the best parliamentarian”. As former Chief Justice of

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177

the Punjab High Court, Dr. Bakshi Tekchand spoke with
authority. The distinguished lawyer and jurist, Dr. M. R.
Jayakar, was one of the “finest speakers in the country”, but
strangely he never felt at home in the Assembly. Like Maulana
Azad, Maulana Hafiz-ul-Rahman presented the point of view of
the Nationalist Muslims. The Shia leader, Tajamul Husain,
spoke indignantly against the communalism of his co-religionists.
Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, the Muslim League crusader for
Pakistan, suddenly turned a nationalist for sometime and, after
making a few patriotic speeches in the Assembly secretly
disappeared to emerge later in the “Land of the Pure”. Begum
Aizaz Rasul did not follow his example and said that Indian
Muslims should thenceforward “identify themselves completely
with the national movement”. There were many women
members in the Assembly who were second to none either in
eloquence or in contributing to the enrichment of the discussions.
They included Mrs. Hansa Mehta, Mrs. Ammu Swaminathan,
Mrs. Renuka Ray, Mrs. Purnima Banerji and Durgabai, who
later became Mrs. Deshmukh. Munshi’s own abilities as a
parliamentarian were considerable. Whether he spoke as a
legislator or as a constitution-maker, “his dominant purpose was
to construct and conserve the best democratic conventions”.*

There was thus no dearth of able and sagacious men and
women who had set out to frame a workable instrument of
government for the country. Largely on account of India’s
apprenticeship to British rule, most of the constitution-makers
were strongly influenced by the political philosophy and the
parliamentary institutions of Britain. Drawing attention to this
fact, Munshi writes” “From the days of Raja Ram Mohan Roy

* Constructive Parliamentarian by J. B. Kripalani in Munshi at
Seventy-five , p. 96.

12-473 M. of I&B/ND/81.

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K. M. Munshi

(1774-1833), Indian political thinking was based on the British
parliamentary system. Possibly no other aspect of British life
influenced the Indians more than the political system of the
former”. The writings of philosophical radicals like Burke,
Bentham and Mill were accepted not only as models of English
prose to be cultivated by the Indian elite but also as the
foundation for the government of the country. Bagehot was a
man of penetrating political perception whose study of the
working of the British Government of his time was unparalleled
for the depth of its insight. Although his essays, published in
book form in 1867 under the title The English Constitution,
became out of date following the introduction of mass suffrage
under Disraeli’s Reforms Act of the same year, the treatise is still
regarded as a classic.

Bagehot maintained that the “efficient secret” of the
English Constitution lay in the “close union, the nearly complete
fusion, of the executive and legislative powers”. He reiterated
this view in a more expressive language, to which attention was
drawn by Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar in the Constituent
Assembly. “A cabinet”, Bagehot wrote, “is a combining
committee — a hyphen which joins, a Buckle which fastens the
legislative part of the State to the executive part of the State. In
its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the
other”.* Bagehot was neither a reactionary nor an obscurantist
but a man of deep perception. He was firmly of the opinion that
the enfranchisement of the masses whom he called “the lower
classes” would be ruinouss to parliamentary democracy. Such a
measure was in his view little short of reposing thoughtless faith
in the wisdom of the mob. He was, however, not the only

* The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot, Thomas Nelson, 1872,
pp. 81, 85.

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179

person who feared that “constituency government” would mark
the end of parliamentary government.

Another authority on the British system of government,
John Stuart Mill, wrote his book on Representative Government
in 1861. He was as categorical as Bagehot in upholding the
paramountcy of parliament. The duty of the Commons was to
watch and control the Government, to censure it freely and to
expel the men composing it from office and “either expressly or
virtually to appoint their successors” if they abused the trust or
fulfilled it in a manner which conflicted with the “deliterate sense
of the nation”. In those days, the Commons had not become a
captive of machine politics, relegating it, like the Crown and the
House of Lords, to Bagehof s dignified part of the Constitution.
The Members of Parliament, no matter to which party they
belonged, were free to criticise the Government for its acts of
omission and commission. Defeat on the floor of the House did
not necessarily involve dismissal from office.

Sir Gilbert Campion in his summary on “Parliamentary
Government” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica says that in the
fifteen years between 1850 and 1865, the government was
defeated on an average of ten times in each session, without
resigning. Such a thing has become impossible now either in
Britain or in any other country which has adopted the West¬
minster system.

The framers of the Constitution, showed admirable
realism in providing for a strong principal government. Munshi,
with his deep historical knowledge, was a convinced Centralist.
He wrote that, in the absence of a strong Centre, “time and
again India had been placed at the mercy of foreign invaders”.
A strong and unified authority would not only ensure protection
from internal disruption and external aggression, but would also
facilitate an orderly economic development of the country.

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K. M. Munshi

India, as the area of a single government and of a single
economy, was essentially a British creation and it would be
imprudent to risk the loss of this inestimable asset by
surrendering to regional chauvinists. The British offer of May
1946 was rejected by the Congress mostly because it provided
for a Centre without the power to enforce its authority. The
partition of the country was a permanent warning against
allowing excessive autonomy to the constituent units of the
Indian Union.

Munshi was indefatigable in his efforts to construct the
Constitution on the basis of a unified polity. He knew that a
country of India’s continental size could not be governed as a
unitary State. He yielded to none in his desire to see the States’
many-sided growth — social, economic and cultural. But he
ranged himself solidly against the advocates of an extreme form
of federation. He had influential support in his drive to create a
strong Central authority. While Dr. Ambedkar was in full
agreement with him, Sardar K. M. Panikkar, an eminent historian
and administrator, made the most devastating attack on the
federal principle in its application to India. In his Note on Some
General Principles of the Union Constitution , May 1947, he
made a closely-reasoned plea for a unitary system based on a
strong Centre. He characterised as “constitutional orthodoxy” the
belief that the future Constitution of India should be based on a
demarcation of powers between the Centre and the provinces.
He held that the doctrine of the division of powers could be
tenable only in times of peace and was not at all good in periods
of “national stresses”. Federation was a “fair weather constitution”
and it would be a dangerous experiment for India to adopt such
a system. There was no need for it, especially after the Muslim
League had refused to’ come into the Constituent Assembly. “I
would, therefore”, wrote this perceptive parliamentarian, “very
strongly urge that the basic principle of the Constitution should be

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181

a unitary one, with large devolution of powers to the Provinces,
and with suitable provisions for the States and other units so
desiring to accede in a limited manner to the Centre”.* *

Panikker’s salutary suggestion was accepted by the
constitution-making body so that, as Dr. Ambedkar told the
House on November 4, 1948, the supreme statute of the land
was based on a “dual polity”. There would be the union at the
Centre and the States at the “periphery”. He explained, that while
all federal systems, including that of America, were cast in a “tight
mould”, the Indian polity would be based on both the federal and
unitary principle. He said: “In normal times, it is framed to work
as a federal system. But in times of war it is so designed as to
make it work as though it was a unitary system. ” He pointed out
that in modern times there was a tendency on the part of the
Federal Governments to acquire more and more powers and
predicted that a similar thing would happen in India also.*

Munshi played an active part in getting several Emergency
Provisions written into the Constitution to ensure the Centre’s
supremacy over the length and breadth of the country. He
certainly did not want the arbitrary and undemocratic Section

* The Framing of India’s Constitution : Select Documents, Volume II,
The Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, 1966, p. 534.
The Princely States had not yet been merged into the provinces when
Panikkar wrote this note.

*Ibid Volume IV, pp. 422-24, 433. The United States of America is
governed by an ideal federal system and yet, as an authority points
out, “nowadays the federal government thinks nothing of passing
bills to control practically anything, from rat-catching and potholes
in the roads to the siting of new hospitals and drains”. The
Governors of the fifty States, who met in August 1980, demanded that
the President and the Congress should set up a Commission to
consider how a true federal system could be restored. (The
Economist of London, American Survey, August 30, 1980, pp. 17-18).

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K. M. Munshi

93 of the Government of India Act of 1935 to be revived in one
form or the other, but he was anxious that the Centre should be
free to step into the States during an emergency whether it
related to law and order, a constitutional impasse or external
threat. He accordingly pleaded for the modification of the
provisions relating to the provincial constitution in order to
accommodate Article 356 in it. This Article lays down that, on
receipt of a report of the Governor of a State that a “situation
has arisen in which the government of the State cannot be
carried on in accordance with the provisions” of the Constitution,
the President of the Union may assume responsibility for running
the government of the State. Under Article 352 the President
may declare an emergency if he is satisfied that the security of
the country or of any part of it is threatened. The next Article
empowers the President to give directives to the States about
the manner in which they should exercise their executive power.
Both Munshi and Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar influenced the
inclusion of Article 354 which imposes a duty on the States to
spend certain types of revenue derived by them according to
the directions given by' the Centre during the period of the
emergency. Munshi was also responsible for the incorporation
of Article 360 providing for meeting any financial, emergency
in the States.

Munshi brought the same thoroughness to bear on the
qustion of providing safeguards for the minorities. He felt that
the most important task before the Assembly was to secure the
country’s, political consolidation. Communal representation had
done great harm to the country and was largely responsible for
its dismemberment. It was imperative that the debris of minority
safeguards left by the British should be removed from the body
politic to ensure the proper working of the country’s free
institutions. In this great task of secularising national politics,

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183

Munshi played a key role. Sardar Patel, who presided over the
Committee on Minority Rights, bluntly told those who still
nursed separatist tendencies and ambitions that they had no
place in India. Speaking the Constituent Assembly on August
28, 1947, he said: “Here we are building a nation and we are
laying the foundation of One Nation, and those who choose to
divide again and sow the seeds of disruption will have no place,
no quarter here, and I must say that plainly enough”.* * Pandit
Pant was equally plain-spoken. He said : “Let not the lesson of
history be lost. It is a lesson which should be burnt deep in the
hearts and minds of all minorities that they can find their
protection only from the people in whose midst they live and it
is on the establishment of mutual goodwill, mutual trust,
cordiality and amity that the rights and interests not only of the
majorities but also of the minorities depend”.*

Munshi’ s campaign against religious representation and
preferential treatment for the minorities was not directed
towards achieving Hindu domination. He was convinced that
sectional and sectarian demands were as harmful to the
communities that made tnem as to the country as a whole. He
advocated secularis n, despite his deep attachment to ancient
Indian culture, because he believed that it was the right course
to follow. His concept of secularism was, however, fundamentally
different from that of the advocates of a “godless” State. He
believed in religious toleration and in the oneness of all great
faiths. The task of persuading the minorities, inured to separate
representation, to give it up in favour of joint electorates was
not an easy one and >et Munshi conducted the negotiations with

* Constituent Assembly Debates : Official Report: 14-7-1947 to 31-7-
1947, Volume IV, pp. 271-272.

* Ibid, January 24, 1947, Volume II, p. 332.

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K. M. Munshi

great confidence in their outcome. The justness of the cause and
his own persuasive abilities inspired him. He writes: “Whatever
training I had in bringing about consent decrees in courts
between cantankerous litigants came in handy, for no two
parties were prepared to give up easily the vested interests
created by the British. In the tiring negotiations what helped me
most was the confidence which Sardar showed by leaving the
manoeuvres to me. Whenever any matter under discussion went
up to him, I could rely upon his backing me up”.
Like the Sardar and Pandit Pant, Munshi played a significant
role in getting rid of the pernicious system of communal
representation. He has paid a handsome tribute to Dr.
Ambedkar for showing “a rare sense of proportion in the
discussions” on the subject.

The constitution-makers gave much thought to the
creation of the three organs of a modem State — the legislature,
the judiciary and the executive. Nehru, the idealist, was,
however, anxious that the Constitution should in addition
embody the Percilean concept of political liberty combined with
social justice. “The service of India”, he declared, “means the
service of the millions who suffer”. The Preamble and the
chapters on Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of
State Policy do not form a part of the machinery of government
set up under the Constitution, but they are regarded as
imperative to national well-being and progress. The inspiration
for the Preamble came from the American Constitution of 1789.
It committed the Indian people to make their country a
Sovereign Democratic Republic. In addition, they pledged
themselves to secure to all its citizens the blessings of justice,
liberty, equality and fraternity. Munshi tells us that most of the
leading members of the Assembly were in favour of such a
Preamble. The inclusion of Fundamental Rights and Directive

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Principles in the statute was influenced by the Prime Minister’s
predilections and Congress commitment. Like the American Bill
of Rights, the Fundamental Rights uphold the right of the people
to be governed by the laws they themselves approve and not by
the edicts of men over whom they have no control. The
question whether these Rights are unalterable like the Laws of
the Medes is the subject of much debate as well as the issue
whether Parliament is free to amend or abrogate them. Rightly
or wrongly, subsequent developments in this country have
sustained Dr. Ambedkar’s view that the Fundamental Rights
embodied in the American and Indian Constitutions are not
absolute.* Munshi has revealed that, while Nehru was keen
about such matters, Sardar Patel was indifferent to them. His
primary concern was to give the country a strong and stable
government. He believed that the political and economic rights
of the people could be best secured by this means.

The framers of the Constitution gave much thought to the
creation of the organs of the Union Government. They provided
for a bicameral legislature, although a section of opinion strongly
expressed itself in favour of one-chamber Parliament. We have a
Parliament which is expected to be much more than a law-making
body. It is an august institution, enshrining not only the sovereignty
and dignity of the Indian people, but also their hopes and
aspirations. Its functions are much more varied and important
than those of passing laws. It should ensure that the executive
fulfils its duties and responsibilities strictly in accordance with its
directives. In short, it should watch over the interests of the
country with the unsleeping eyes of Argus and chastise the mling
party if it fails to fulfil its obligations. It follows that, in order to
shoulder such responsibilities, the Members of Parliament should

* Constituent Assembly Debates, Volume VII, p. 41, Ambedkar’s speech
on November 4, 1948.

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K. M. Munshi

be knowledgeable, upright, honest and forward-looking. In fact,
they are expected to be models of eminence.

Much thought was given to the structure and powers of
the Supreme Court of India which forms a vital component in
the trilogy of the Union Government’s powers. An ad hoc
Committee of eminent jurists, with Sir S. Varadachariar, Chief
justice of the Federal Court, was appointed by the President of
the Constituent Assembly to make its recommendations on the
subject. The Committee included Sir Alladi Krishnaswami
Ayyar, Sir B. L. Mitter, ex-Law Member of the Government of
India, Sir B. Narsing Rau and Munshi. To meet the needs of an
independent India, it became necessary to change the basis and
the powers of the Federal Court that had been brought into
existence under the Government of India Act of 1935. Munshi
was most active in doing this. He believed that the Union
Judiciary should be endowed with extensive jurisdiction to
ensure the efficient working of the country’s legal and political
systems. Besides urging that the independence of the High
Courts should be fully protected, he said: “Once the units with
provincial autonomy are established and linguistic provinces
formed, there would naturally arise a tendency for these units to
evolve on the lines of petty nation States. The only preventive
to such in attempt is, first and foremost, the influence of the
Supreme Court as a unifying agency. The Union Government
would no doubt exercise a variety of influences, political and
financial. But the unconscious process of consolidation, which a
uniformity of laws and interpretation involves, makes the
unifying unconscious and therefore more stable”. He wanted the
Supreme Court to be the “crowning piece” of the Constitution.
Thanks to the labours of Munshi and others, the Union Judiciary
is endowed with powers much wider than those given to any
Federal Supreme Court in the world. It is the highest court of

The Constitution

187

appeal and has original jurisdiction in disputes between the
Union and the States and between the States inter se.

The third branch of the government is the excutive which
is of crucial importance since upon it depends the security and
progress of the State. Munshi gave a good deal of thought to
the vital question of the powers of the President and the Prime
Minister when the Constituition was in the making and wrote
copiously about it after its promulgation. He never accepted the
contention that the President of the Indian Union or the
Governor of a State was a mere figurehead, with no functions
of any kind to perform. He closely followed the controversy
between Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad on this issue.
The tendency to make the Indian system of government an
imitation of the Westminster system was deprecated, among
others, by Rajendra Prasad and Munshi. Munshi was on firm
ground when he maintained both during the framing of the
Constitution and thereafter that it was impossible to dismiss the
Presidential office as of no importance. He had the prescience
to realise that the country would long be under the control of a
single party, namely, the Congress and felt that adequate
constitutional safeguards were necessary to prevent the country
from becoming a mono-party-controlled “totalitarian State”.
His efforts were, therefore, directed towards strengthening the
powers and functions of the President “so that in a crisis he
could step in and avert a constitutional break-down at the

Centre . ” For this and for other reasons, a number of

provisions were made in the Constitution, defining the powers
of the President. The pivotal position that was accorded to him
was not derived from any particular constitution but was the
“result of a compromise arrived at in the context of
Indian conditions.”*

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K.M. Munshi, pp. 255-56.

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K. M. Munshi

In a closely-reasoned and ably-presented essay on
the Presidential powers, Munshi declared emphatically
that “no responsible member of the Constituent Assembly stated
that the President under the Constitution was to be powerless,
nor was it so understood by the Constituent Assembly; on the
contrary, several members thought that he was vested with wide
powers”. It was considered imperative that the President should
not be the “creature of the Parliament’ ’ or a “nominee of the party
in power at the Centre”. He must be an independent functionary
charged with the duty of preventing parliamentary government
from becoming parliamentary anarchy or “a majority government
from indulging in constitutional excesses”. He was in fact required
to be the supreme guardian of the Constitution. Munshi wrote: “If
the powers of the President are passed on to the Prime Minister
and the President becomes a figurehead, the character of the
Union as a quasi-federation will be totally destroyed. The Union
will become a unitary one and its powers of maintaining the
unity of the country will also be materially impaired”**
Munshi certainly did not want the President to be a dictator and
called attention to the various constitutional safeguards against
any such development, but maintained that the head of State was
entitled to exercise “supra-ministerial” powers. He pointed out
that much thought and discussion had preceded the enumeration
of the President’s powers which were stated in clear and
categorical terms. It would be against all canons of logic and
reason to say that those powers were not at all intended to
be exercised.

The President under the constution by K.M Munshi, Bharatiya
vidyaBhavan,1963 pp 10,25,36

** The president under constitution by K.M munshi, Bharat Vidya
Bhavan, 1963, pp 10,25,26,36.

The Constitution

189

Munshi and his colleagues in the Constituent Assembly did
not have to struggle much to find a model for the Government of
the States since it was provided by the Government of India Act,
1935. He had never been an indiscriminate critic of that Act. His
experience with it as a Minister in 1937 had convinced him that,
with suitable modifications, the provisions relating to the provincial
government could well be adopted in the free Indian Constitution.
The crucial issue was the scope of the Governor’s powers.
Nobody in Constituent Assembly wanted him to be absolute as
under the British dispensation, but opinion was divided on how
much power should be granted to him under the changed
conditions. Munshi’s views on the subject will be discussed in the
next chapter which deals with his role as Minister and Governor.

Munshi was a firm believer in the rule of law. He was
anxious that respect for law should not be jeopardised on any
account. Mass action, even if it was non-violent, was anathematic
to him. Dr. Ambedkar, with his characteristic bluntness, had
described earlier in the Constituent Assembly movements like
Satyagraha and civil disobedience as the “grammar of
anarchy”, a phrase made famous by the British statesman,
Asquith. Munshi, who held equally strong views, wrote:
“Satyagraha, as a collective activity is certainly unconstitutional
and anti-social, paving the way to anarchy. The fact that it is
non-violent does not make it less unconstitutional”. In fact, we
have seen that it is impossible to keep Satyagraha within non¬
violent bounds; even under Gandhiji’s leadership, the movement,
at many places, took a violent turn”.*

Munshi has every right to claim an exalted place among
the principal architects of free India’s Constitution. His knowledge
and industry and his enthusiasm for the great undertaking were

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K.M. Munshi, Volume I p. 196.

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K. M. Munshi

an asset to the constitution-making body. The high tribute paid
to him by a distinguished judge provides a fitting conclusion to
this chapter. Justice N. H. Bhagwati writes: “In the great
process of framing the Constitution, Munshi played an important
and conspicuous part, taking continuous interest from its very
beginning till the end. Behind many of the ideas enshrined in the
Constitution lay Munshi’s fertile brain. Future history of India
will record to what extent Munshi was right in his ideas, but he
will always be remembered for the valiant fight he put up for a
strong and United India, a strong Centre and an integrated
judiciary and he is assured of a permanent place among the
Founding Fathers of our Constitution”.#

#An Architect of the Constitution by N. H. Bhagwati in Munshi at
Seventy-five, p. 93.

XII

Minister and Governor

MUNSHI FOLLOWED MAHATMA GANDHI with
deep conviction regarding him as his supreme exemplar,
but his own eminence as an intellectual and as a pragmatist
prevented him from accepting all the ideals of the Mahatma as
sacrosanct. For instance, the Gandhian approach to the
communal question left him unconvinced. Equally unacceptable
to him were the Mahatma’s views on the issue of council entry
and constitutional reforms. In July 1933 the Mahatma declared:
“My head reels at the very thought of entering Councils for the
sake of wanting independence”. The Government of India Act,
1935, the last British instalment of transfer of power, was
equally sterile in his eyes. While Nehru dismissed it as a “slave
constitution”, Gandhi delivered the coupe de grace to it by
telling the Viceroy that he had not read the statute at all.

Not all Congressmen shared this point of view.
The predilections of C. Rajagopalachari, for instance, were for
working Whitehall’s political reforms for what they were worth.
Munshi had deeper conviction on the subject. He believed that
by taking advantage of the proffered concessions, the Congress
would be in a much stronger position to demand a complete
transfer of power. He, therefore, looked at the Act of 1935 in
an entirely different light and described it as “a great feat of
political acumen and constitutional draftsmanship”. He believed
that the statute furnished a sure stepping-stone to Dominion
status and advocated, through press and platform, office

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K. M. Munshi

acceptance with a pertinacity that provoked some degree of
uninformed criticism.

In the general elections of 1935-37, the Congress won a
resounding victory, annexing as many as 711 seats. “The
Congress sweep”, says Professor Brecher, “is all the more
impressive when it is borne in mind that of the 1,585 seats less
than half, 657, were ‘general’ or open, that is, not allotted to a
separate, closed electoral group. The balance was fragmented
among Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Europeans, landholders and
others”.* Munshi was anxious that this great achievement of the
Congress, signifying its matchless hold on the masses, should
not be reduced to naught by airily dismissing the Act as useless.
He feared that Congress rejection of power would give an
opportunity to the reactionaries to capture it and thus unduly
delay India’s attainment of the ultimate goal. He, therefore, went
to the Mahatma to persuade him to withdraw his objection to
office acceptance. Gandhi, who had not read the Act, asked
Munshi to explain its provisions to him. After listening to him
patiently, the Mahatma said: “From what you tell me, I think we
could do something with this Act”.

The statute conferred on the Governors of Provinces a
plenitude of arbitrary powers which, if they so chose, they could
exercise to the detriment of the popular ministries. Again, the
Congress had long been persona non grata with the British
bureaucracy and its acceptance of responsibilities of government
was apt to provoke jealousies and antagonisms. Besides, the
danger of accepting responsibility without power was obvious. In
March 1937, the Congress, therefore, directed the leaders of the
Congress party in the legislatures not to agree to form popular

* Nehru: A Political Biography by Michael Brecher, Oxford, 1959,
p. 229.

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193

ministries in their respective provinces unless a solemn assurance
was given by the Government that the Governors would not be
allowed to use their “special powers of interference or set aside
the advice of ministers in regard to their constitutional activities”.
It certainly did not intend that the Governors should divest
themselves of their special powers, but wanted to be assured that
they would not be used with impunity to thwart initiative and
enterprise of the ministers.

There was a splendid response to the Congress plea by
the leaders of the British Government. On June 17, 1937 the
Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, told the House of Commons
that the Governors were expected to use special powers with
“discretion and restraint”. He was sure that there was a genuine
desire in the House that “provincial self-Government in India
should work, and work well. I cannot believe that this is possible
unless we in this House frankly recognise the new distribution of
responsibilities”. Five days later, on June 22, the Viceroy, Lord
Linlithgow, gave a detailed elucidation of his Government’s stand
on the issue. In a message , he explained that there was no
“foundation for any suggestion that a Governor is free, or is
entitled, or would have the power, to interfere with the day-to-
day administration ol a province outside the limited range of the
responsibilities specifically confined to him. Before taking a
decision against the ad /ice of his ministers even within that limited
range a Governor will spare no pains to make to clear to his
ministers the reasons which have weighed with him in thinking
both that the decision is one which it is incumbent on him to take,
and that it is the right one”.*

These two authoritative statements clinched the issue in
favour of Congress foiming its ministries in July in Bombay,

* Linlithgow's Speeches and Statements, Government of India, 1945,
p. 30.

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K. M. Munshi

Madras, the Central Provinces, the United Provinces, Bihar and
Orissa. Sometime thereafter, the North-West Frontier Province
also came under its control. Many months later Congress
coalition ministry was formed in Assam. The party thus gained
a commanding position in eight out of the eleven British Indian
provinces. The fate and future of India would perhaps have
been different if the Congress had not given up its governmental
responsibilities in October 1939 on the issue of Britain’s war
and peace aims in relation to the Indian demand for
independence. With one or two exceptions, the ministries
worked with great zeal, ability and understanding, thus
demonstrating the existence of “constructive statesmanship in
the Congress ranks”. C. Rajagopalachari in Madras, Gobind
Ballabh Pant in the United Provinces, Bal Gangadhar Xher in
Bombay and Dr. Khan Sahib in the North-West Frontier
Province rose to great heights of statesmanship in guiding the
destinies of their provinces. In two of the three non-Congress
provinces, the popular ministries, none of which owed allegiance
to the Muslim League, were also led by forward-looking men.
The affairs of Sind were, however, in a constant state of flux.

There was some difficulty in the choice of the leader of
the Congress legislature party in Bombay. Normally, that
distinction should have belonged to K.F.Nariman,
a Parsi patriot, who had won national reputation by his bold
exposure of the venality of British bureaucrats in Bombay. He
had been one of the most popular Mayors of the city and had
won the hearts of the citizens by his tireless labour in their
cause. He stood high in the Congress hierarchy and was
esteemed by the national leaders. But his astonishing behaviour
in 1934 at the time of the elections to the Central Legislative
Assembly had gravely prejudiced his candidature for the

13-473 M. of I&b/nd/81/.

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195

leadership of the Bombay ministry in July 1937. In 1934, the
Congress decided to contest two seats in the Central legislature
from the city of Bombay and nominated Dr. G. V. Deshmukh
and Nariman as its candidates. In October, Nariman backed
out of the elections at the eleventh hour on untenable grounds
with the obvious intention of ensuring the victory of his friend,
Sir Cowasji Jehangir, a rival of Congress candidates.

Munshi, who had earlier declined to stand as a candidate,
was now pressed by Sardar Patel to step into the breach. Both
then and for a long time later, Bombay was the strong-hold of
the Congress and there was every reason to believe that both
Deshmukh and Munshi would emerge victorious. But Nariman,
who was then the President of the Bombay Provincial Congress
Committee, went to the polling booths and advised the voters
in certain wards to cast both their votes to Deshmukh, saying
that Munshi had already secured the winning votes. Thanks to
these manoeuvres, Sir Cowasji won by securing 18,140 votes
as against Munshi’ s 17,015. The defeat of the Congress
candidate caused countrywide dismay because Bombay was
long regarded as the most incorruptible fountain of Indian
nationalism. Nariman was not forgiven for his indefensible role
in this episode. He had further queered the pitch for his
candidature to the Bombay Premiership by his strictures on
Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership in a booklet published by him in
1932. Munshi declared that he would not serve in any ministry
if it was to be led by such a person.*

A section of opinion favoured the elevation of Munshi to
the Bombay Premiership. No less a person than Sardar Patel
considered him the best person for that position. Besides
Nariman’s campaign against him, the Marathi speaking Congress

* A brief reference has been made to the Nariman episode in
Chapter 5.

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K. M. Munshi

legislators were, however, unlikely to opt for Munshi. It was,
therefore, decided that Khcr should lead the party in the
Bombay Legislature. Munshi held his new leader in great
esteem as a man of high ideals and as one who sincerely
believed in and practised Gandhism. Besides, Kher was a great
Sanskrit scholar, which provided a further common ground for
the two to come closer together. While the path was cleared for
Munshi to enter the ministry, a great surprise awaited him about
the portfolio. He wanted both the Law and Education portfolios
to be placed under his control, but a was persuaded to take
charge of the Home Ministry. He cheerfully accepted his new
responsibility, although ministership involved a tremendous
financial loss. The Congress ministers pledged themselves to
draw a monthly salary of Rs. 500/-. The Mahatma would have
liked them to take only Rs. 75/- a month. Munshi did not waste
even a moment in assessing the financial implications of his new
position. He rejoiced that he had as his colleagues in the
ministry a team of talented men, all determined to ensure the
success of Congress experiment in running the government.
Mohamed Yasin Nuri, a lawyer from Ahmedabad and an
independent legislator, was the Muslim member of the ministry.

Consisting of like-minded men, the Kher Ministry
functioned as a disciplined team, taking decisions on the
principle of collective responsibility. Munshi has described how
the cabinet worked. “Before every meeting of the Cabinet”, he
writes, “the Ministers met informally, discussed matters on the
agenda and took decisions. When the Cabinet met later, with
the Governor in the chair, the deliberations were formal and
colourless. The Minister in charge carried on an undisturbed
monologue and the Governor gave his assent with a formal

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197

phrase or two, accepting the position with an understanding
smile”.* Both Lord Brabourne and his suceessor, Sir Roger
Lumley, were men of understanding and were determined not to
provoke a constitutional crisis in their dealings with the Kher
Ministry, although they could have found ample pretexts for
doing so. They fully shared Whitehall’s and New Delhi’s anxiety
to ensure the success of the new system of provincial self-
government. As Munshi repeatedly testified, the British personnel
of the bureaucracy was equally keen on not frustrating the
experiment.

Munshi was put in charge of constitutional matters
pertaining to the working of the Government. He could be
trusted to guard the rights, privileges and immunities of the
popular ministry with extreme vigilance. Within a fortnight of his
taking charge of the Home portfolio, he issued an official
communique, calling upon the public to appreciate the significance
of the Congress coming into power. It promised to protect the
civil liberties and fundamental rights of the people and to
remove the hardships they had suffered under emergency
measures. At the same time, it asserted the right of the
Government “to take all steps to prevent the dissemination of
class hatred and ideas involving the use of organised or
unorganised violence in the furtherance of any object”. It was a
clear warning to the disruptionists, communal and other, that
their efforts to bring the popular government into disrepute or to
hamper the province’s economic progress would not be
tolerated. Munshi was a firm believer in the inviolability of law
and order and was prepared to go to any length to strengthen
it. Did not the great German, Goethe, say: “I would rather
commit an injustice than suffer disorder”.

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume 1, p. 48.

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K. M. Munshi

Munshi and his colleagues were determined to function
with untrammelled freedom as if they were a Dominion cabinet.
He firmly resisted the suggestion that the ministry’s
correspondence with the Secretary of State for India and the
Governor-General should be routed through the Governor. He
maintained that the Governor was only a constitutional head of
the government so that the real executive authority rested with
the Council of Ministers. He pointed out that the Dominions did
not follow the procedure that was sought to be prescribed for
the Bombay ministry. He showed similar eagerness to protect
the powers of the ministry by frankly telling the Public Service
Commission of Bombay that it was wrong in claiming powers
which it was statutorily precluded from exercising. The Public
Service Commission, he argued was created to enure impartial
recruitment to Government service and to protect a “popular
ministry from constant charges of favouritism”. This did not
mean that the Commission could play with impunity the “role of
a monitor of the Government”. Constitutionally, it was no more
than a committee brought into being by the Government and
“vested with certain statutory powers for the attainment of a
particular object”.

On delicate issues, involving the susceptibilities of highly-
placed men, Munshi could be trusted to adopt the most
sophisticated techniques to achieve his end. Sir Kenneth Kemp,
a friend of his, was the Advocate-General of Bombay. The
Kher ministry desired to have an Indian in his place. Munshi
told the Governor, Sir Roger Lumley, that he had absolute
confidence in the impartiality of Sir Kenneth who was required
to give his legal advice to both the Governor and the ministry.
It would, however, be difficult for him to convert his cabinet
colleagues to his point of view. He, Munshi, would be much
embarrassed in consulting Sir Kenneth on all those occasions
when the Governor and the Ministry did not see eye to eye. The

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199

Governor did not, however, see the need for a change.
Thereupon the Home Minister placed his problem before Sir
Kenneth himself who, appreciating his predicament, generously
tendered his resignation on December 2, 1937. Munshi had the
supreme satisfaction of having his old friend and comrade,
Motilal C. Setalvad, installed in the vacant office.

Munshi showed similar tact and adroitness in another
elicit matter, involving the release of a young man, V. B. Gogte,
who was undergoing life imprisonment for making an attempt on
the life of Sir Ernest Hotson, Acting Governor of Bombay.
Gogte was a college student when he launched himself on such
a mad adventure. Munshi’s plea for his release was turned
down by the Governor, Lord Brabourne, who held that
“attempts at assassinating a Governor are a serious matter.”
Munshi adopted a different modus operandi and wrote directly
to Sir Ernest, who was his friend, appealing to him to agree to
the release of the young man. The Englishman rose to great
heights of nobility and wrote to the Viceroy, saying that he
would have no objection to Gogte’ s release. The Governor’s
scruples on the issue now ceased to be relevant. Munshi met
Gogte in jail and was impressed by his intelligence. Before
announcing his release to the Legislative Assembly, the Home
Minister took him to his residence privately and kept him there
as his guest for two days. To the surprise and delight of the
members, he not only announced the glad news of Gogte’ s
release but also told them that the young man could be seen
sitting in the visitors’ gallery and listening to the debate. At
Munshi’s request, the Chief Justice, Sir John Beaumont,
permitted Gogte to appear for the law examination. He later
became a successful lawyer and leader of the Opposition in the
Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

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K. M. Munshi

Churchill denounced communism as the disease of the
soul. Munshi did not go that far, but was convinced that the
strategy of violence and subversion was wholly unnecessary to
promote social justice. Attempts were made to draw him into
the charmed circle of the devotees of Marxism but without
success.* When he took charge of the Home portfolio, he was
faced with the two-fold task of securing the release of detained
communist leaders and to prevent lightning industrial strikes.
When he studied the voluminous official files, he found that it
would not be easy to secure the Governor’s permission to set
these men at liberty. Nehru was in a hurry and peremptorily
asked Munshi to take immediate action. Mahatma Gandhi, who
fully appreciated his predicament, advised him to deal with the
problem as best he could. Munshi eventually succeeded in
carrying the Governor with him and in rescinding the orders
passed on the communist leaders.

Munshi rose to the full height of masterful leadership
when dealing with the industrial unrest in the city of Bombay
which had long been the communist stronghold. Soon after the
Kher ministry took office, it issued a statement declaring its
determination to maintain industrial peace as part of its
programme to promote the many-sided progress of the
province. Legislation would be introduced to minimise strikes
and lockouts. The new law would give full protection to the
workers' interests. At the same time, they should endeavour to
acquire strength by running their organisation “on genuine trade
union lines”. Besides releasing the left wing labour leaders, the
Government appointed an expert body to study the whole
question of wages and work organisation and to make suitable
recommendations to it. At a private meeting with a prominent

* I follow the Mahatma by K.M. Munshi, p.94.

Minister and Governor

201

communist leader, Munshi earnestly pleaded for allowing the
ministry to proceed along these lines peacefully. He was,
however, told that “as a revolutionary body”, the Communist
Party “must remain the sole judge as to when and how to
strike”. Munshi accepted the challenge. Effective police protection
to loyal workers considerably brought down the frequency of
lightning strikes. Drawing a lesson from this episode, Munshi
wrote later that no indulgence should be shown to the
communists where the vital issue of law and order and the
stability of the country was involved.

Munshi’s great gifts as an able and resourceful
administrator were brought into full play when quelling communal
violence in the Bombay province. The Bombay city had long
been the cockpit of communal feuds. For instance, in February
1874, the peace of the city was undermined following violent
clashes between Muslims and Parsis. The manner in which he
handled the two serious Hindu-Muslim riots that occurred
during his Home Ministership thoroughly exposed the hollowness
of the propaganda that Indians were congenitally incapable of
dealing with such situations. The first riot took place on April
17, 1938. When Munshi was informed about it at 8 p.m. he
rushed to the affected areas and, after studying the situation
there, went straight to the office of the Commissioner of Police
where he issued firm orders suppressing the violence. Curfew
was promptly clamped down in the troubled areas, the
assembly of more than five persons was banned, and no man
was allowed to carry lethal weapons. In addition, over a
thousand suspected men were rounded up and held in detention
in an improvised prison. Orders sanctioning these measures
were printed and pasted on all important premises. Most
citizens of Bombay woke up to be told that there had been
communal disturbances the previous night.

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K. M. Munshi

The second riot took place on August I, 1939, when the
Muslim League organised a huge procession against the
introduction of prohibition. The violence that ensued was
promptly suppressed by the police whose action was later
justified by judicial verdict. Munshi was prepared to go to any
length to put down disorder. When the Chief Justice of Bombay
questioned him about the legality of his orders, he replied that
his duty was to preserve peace. He had great faith in the
efficiency of the Bombay police which served him with
exemplary loyalty. He made no secret of his admiration for the
force. On one occasion he said: “1 have been accused by many
Congressmen of supporting the police too strongly. I told them
that this was only natural as I am now a policeman”.* Writing
in later years about his experience as the guardian of the peace
of the province, Munshi said that the communal riots were
essentially a law and order problem. Prompt, impartial and stem
action by the police could produce the desired results. N.P.A.
Smith, who served under Munshi and later became Director of
the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India, was all
praise for the Congress Home Minister. He wrote: “The British
eye is at all times keen to spot discriminate treatment. I was
impresed intead by Mr. Munshi's determiniation to adhere
rigidly to the completely impartial, if firm, principles he had
himself formulated. My respect was the greater in that the
communal nettle was one from which the British themselves
have always somewhat timorously shrunk.”

Munshi was a busy smith whose anvil never remained
idle. He reorganised the Bombay City Police, fought corruption
in the ranks of the force and entrusted it with the enforcement
of prohibition laws. Based on the recommendations of a

* A Farseeing Administration by K.L. Panjabi in Munshi at Seventy-five,
p. 105.

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203

Committee presided over by himself, he reformed the Criminal
Tribes Settlements in the Bombay province, granting their
members more freedom of movement and helping them to
overcome their lawless stendencies. He Indianised the Royal
Western India Turf Club and made it possible for the indian
horse and jocky to come into their own. He was responsible for
stimulating the horse-breeding industry in the country. It was in
the fitness of things that the nationalised Turf Club established an
annual event, the Munshi Cup Race.

Munshi was instrumental in putting through the Industrial
Relations Act and in the establishment of the first Industrial
Court in the country. He was among the first to realise the
inevitability of Bombay's expansion and to advocate the
planning of Greater Bombay. He also played an active part in
getting the necessary legislation passed to facilitate the return of
the confiscated lands to the peasants who had lost them during
the civil disobedience movement. He was a man of restless
disposition, always pulsating with new ideas and planning new
schemes for the public good. There is no doubt that he would
have accomplished much more if the Kher ministry had lasted
longer than for only twenty-eight months.

In a tribute to Munshi's stewardship of the Bombay Home
ministry, W. W. Russel, a member of the European group in the
provincial legislature, said that many Englishmen, who had
stayed in the province for a longer period than he were of the
opinion that “Bombay has never been served by such a strong
and capable Home Minister as Mr. Munshi proved himself to be
from 1937 to 1939”. He added “with all sincerity that Mr. Munshi
has by far the clearest brain of all those that I have met;
furthermore, he understands the vital necessity of preserving law

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and order during these anxious days of transition from foreign
Government to National Independence”.* Similar high praise
was bestowed on his administrative abilities by fair-minded and
knowledgeable Indians.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in
September 1939 and the resignation of Congress ministries in
the following month, Munshi, like the rest of his partymen, had
the disconcerting experience of having to wander in the political
wilderness almost till the advent of national freedom. His
admission to the Union Cabinet in February 1950 was in the
fitness of things, but the fact that he, a lawyer, an educationist
and a man of letters, should have been called upon to take over
the Food and Agriculture Ministry surprised both him and
others. The Ministry had threatened to become the graveyard of
reputations. The state of the country’s agricultural economy was
dismal and food scarcity threatened to become chronic. During
the preceding four decades, the population had increased by 39
per cent with no corresponding rise in foodgrain production.
There was thus a notable decrease in the per capita availability
of foodgrains from internal sources.

The separation of Burma from the Indian subcontinent in
1936 had reduced internal supplies by 1.3 million tons. The
partition of the country in 1947 further aggravated the problem
of food supplies, forcing the country to lean heavily on imports.
Foodgrain imports in 1948 and 1949 were of the order of 2.8
million tons and 3.7 million tons, respectively. Supplies of
cotton, the mainstay of the textile industry, also presented
serious difficulties. The best cottons of undivided India were
grown in the fertile lands of the Punjab and Sind. On partition,
a considerable portion of this area fell to the share of Pakistan,

* Munshi : His Art and Work, Volume 11, pp. 142, 143.

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205

leaving the Indian Union with only one-fifth of undivided India’s
irrigated area under cotton. Munshi was thus faced with the
tremendous task of helping the country to become self-sufficient
in both food and fibre.

When he took charge of the Ministry the scene that
unfolded itself before him was disheartening, but he was a man
of considerable resourcefulness and optimism. He saw that,
frustrated by continual failures, the officials of his Ministry had
become disspirited and sought to hide their defeatist attitude
behind redtapism. He told them that in an essentially agricultural
country like India, blessed with a network of large and perennial
rivers and with assured rainfall in large parts of it, self-
sufficiency in foodgrains and in other farm produce need not be
dismissed as a chimerical goal. He imparted order and cohesion
to the various departments of the Ministry which had long
become accustomed to function like Plato's team of horses,
each department pulling in its own direction. Besides infecting
his officers with his own enthusiasm, he laboured indefatigably,
thus inspiring them with a sense of mission. He brought
considerable realism to bear on grappling with the country's
agrarian problems. The system of controls had become an
unmitigated curse. It stimulated a continual rise in foodgrain
prices, encouraged the States to exaggerate their deficits and to
minimise their surpluses, forced the farmers to divert their lands
to the production of cash crops, and put a premium on
hoarding, black-marketing and corruption. It, in fact, encouraged
the psychology of scarcity among the people. In 1947-48,
Munshi had supported Mahatma Gandhi in his pea for lifting
controls, but he was a pragmatist. He knew, as he told the
Prime Minister in his detailed letter of March 14, 1952,
explaining his views on the need for a new national agricultural
policy, that controls were a great disincentive to higher
production. But in the prevailing situation it would have been

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suicidal to do away with them before making plans for higher
output. Unfavourable rains for two consecutive seasons forced
him to be careful on the question of controls.

He was, however, firmly opposed to the Planning
Commission’s suggestion for tightening the food controls by
introducing an integrated price structure. He wanted a free flow
of marketable surplus of foodgrains from the rural to the urban
areas. The Government had taken the responsibility of feeding
143 million people in towns and cities through ration shops and
he did not want this responsibility to be enlarged. The Minister
was all the time seeking ways and means of overcoming the
tyranny of controls. He began by decontrolling gram, which was
produced in surplus only by the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh and Rajasthan. In 1950, it was being sold at about Rs.
9 to Rs. 11 per maund in the Punjab and Rajasthan, but was
available in Bombay at the high price of Rs. 30 and in Madras
at Rs. 60. In August of that year gram was decontrolled by
fixing a ceiling price of Rs. 12 per maund in the surplus areas
and Rs. 16 in the others. A similar bold step was taken about
sugar by introducing a two-price system. Some ten lakh tons of
sugar were procured from the sugar mills and distributed among
the ration shops in the country to be sold at controlled prices.
The industry was free to sell the remaining output in free market
at any price. The policy of selective control stimulated
sugar production which increased from 9.8 lakh tons
in 1949 to 11.2 lakh tons in 1950, the figure for 1951 being 15
lakh tons.

Munshi, however, gave concentrated attention to the
question of attaining a self-reliant agricultural economy in as
short a period as possible. The Prime Minister had said in 1949
that the goal of self-sufficiency in food should be reached by the
end of 1951. It was undoubtedly an over-ambitious target, but

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207

efforts on a war footing should be made to attain it. Towards
this end, Munshi convened a conference of the Chief Ministers
of all the States and appealed to them to give top priority to
food production. He told them that the Grow More Food
campaign started during the Second World War had yielded no
results for lack of the necessary drive. He reorganised the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research and gave a new
constitution to it, making it a “super-university of research and
extension”. He told the research officers of this institution that in
a period of grave food crisis extension work was far more
important than fundamental research.

Munshi initiated far-reaching projects of Land
Transformation — a term coined by himself. He defined this term
in August 1950 as “the utilization of land on a rational basis so
that the available resources of land, water and livestock are
developed to their maximum potential and the population
assured of a decent standard of living”. While in Rome, Munshi
discussed with agricultural experts the feasibility of setting up a
Land Development Corporation in India. The aim of such a
body, as it functioned in the Netherlands, for example, was to
acquire, reclaim and cultivate land; to take land on hire for
cultivation; to settle people on the reclaimed land; to develop
irrigation; to manufacture tractors or to provide tractor service;
to sink- wells and tube- wells; to manufacture and improve
pumps; to import fertilisers and agricultural equipment; and to
adopt a progressive forest policy.* The project was to be
started with the assistance of the International Bank, but nothing
came out of it due to Munshi’s premature withdrawal from the

* Munshi’s letter of March 14, 1952, to the Prime Minister published
in book form with the title Problems of Food and Agriculture with
a preface dated May 5, 1973, by Mrs. Lilavati Munshi, Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, 1973, p. 55.

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K. M. Munshi

Union Ministry. He also encouraged the formation of a Land
Army or Bhoomi Sena which was inaugurated by the President
of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Shramdan or free gift of manual
labour for public causes became the offspring of this movement
and soon attained much popularity.

Development of animal husbandry was given its rightful
place in Munshi’ s programme of integrated agricultural
production. To Mahatma Gandhi the cow was the “poem of
pity”; to his crusading follower it was “mother cow”, while the
buffalo was an “aunt”! His solicitude for the bullock was a
equally great. The animal carried on “its patient shoulders the
heavy burden of India’s agriculture”. He set up a Board to
reorganise the Gowshalas, numbering some 3,000, and
introduced a village-level scheme to eliminate useless animals
and to encourage the breeding of improved cattle for milk and
draught purposes. Nothing escaped his vigilant eye. Under his
inspiration, the Union Government sanctioned large sums of
money for the development of fisheries.

Munshi ’s heart bled at the sight of more and more trees
falling to the axe of the land-hungry man. “Wherever I go” he
told the Prime Minister in his letter of March 14, 1952, “I find
that trees are being cut down thoughtlessly by the villagers and
the process practically connived at by the authorities”. He
wished “ecological studies and the relation of our national
existence to our land, water, rivers and forests is more closely
studied”. He popularised tree-planting and repeatedly called
upon his countrymen to become tree-minded, reminding them
that their venerable civilization was bom in the mighty forests of
ancient India. Vana Mahotsava or tree planting has now
become an annual festival in the country. He formulated a new
national forest policy and raised the Forest Research Institute to
international status by intensifying and enlarging its activities. He

Minister and Governor

209

called upon the farming community to launch a vigorous drive
against soil erosion and drew up a comprehensive scheme for
arresting the spread of the Rajasthan desert.

The Food Minister exhorted his countrymen not to be
enslaved by their food habits, especially in a period of scarcity.
To wean them from depending heavily on the cereals, he tried
to popularise the consumption of subsidiary foods. In this great
undertaking, he was ably assisted by his wife, Mrs. Lilavati.
Both suggested that one day in the week should be observed
as a non-cereal day. Thanks to Mrs. Munshi’s indefatigable
labours, the movement caught on. It became popular, following
the establishment of the Annapurna cafetaria under the auspices
of the All-India Women’s Food Council, which was specially
set up through Mrs. Munshi’s initiative. The first such
non-cereal restaurant was established in the country’s capital. It
became popular in Bombay and Pune.

Munshi held charge of the Union Ministry of Food and
Agriculture for a brief period from February 1950 to May 1952
and yet the impact of his leadership was felt by all its
departments. He needed longer time to ensure the success of
his various schemes. It was not a simple task to galvanise five
million big and small farmers spread all over a country of India’s
continental size. Since agriculture is a State subject, he could
only, to borrow the famous words of Walter Bagehot used in
another context, advise, encourage and warn the State
Governments on agrarian problems. Vana Mahotsava provides
an example of how many of his original ideas have caught the
imagination of the people, but without corresponding purposeful
action. The destruction of trees and forests goes on unabated.
Along with it there is an alarming depletion of the country’s
precious wild life, for the protection of which Munshi pleaded
with such eloquence and pertinacity.

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Although during his tenure as Union Minister he received
more brickbats than bouquets, Munshi had the satisfaction of
knowing that many of the moves he had made had become an
integral part of the national agricultural policy. Dr. Rajendra
Prasad, who had held the food portfolio himself, could make a
correct appraisal of Munshi’s achievements. In a rare tribute to
the retiring Minister, the President said thus on February 14,
1952: “I know with what anxieties you had to work these last
twelve months, often in the face of unhelpful criticism. It was in
no small measure due to your initiative and drive that the
tragedy of Bengal was not re-enacted in Bihar last year and in
Gujarat this year. The public will no doubt appreciate your
efforts when it becomes aware of what has been accomplished,
but I feel that I ought to express my own thanks to you and
through you to all those who have co-operated with you in
bringing about this improvement”. It was Munshi’s measures
which paved the way for the “green revolution” to sweep the
Indian agricultural economy in later years, making it possible for
this country to attain self-sufficiency in food.

In the first week of May 1952, the Prime Minister called
Munshi and offered him the Governorship of Uttar Pradesh, the
largest State in the country. Munshi was somewhat taken aback
at the offer. In September of the previous year, he had decided
to shed his ministerial responsibilities on a convenient date in
order to return to his first love, law and literature. Both. Dr.
Rajendra Prasad and Mrs. Lilavati Munshi were strongly of the
opinion that he should agree to shoulder the gubernatorial
responsibilities. His esteemed friend, Sir N. Gopalaswami
Ayyanger, was, however, of a different view. He reminded
Munshi that Pandit Gobind Ballabh Pant, a man with intimidating
personality, was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and
apprehended serious differences between the two. Munshi did

Minister and Governor

211

not share this fear and assured his friend that he and Pant could
get on very well.

What perhaps decided Munshi to accept the premier's
offer was his emotional attachment to Uttar Pradesh. It was not
merely the largest State in the country, but’ was redolent of
historical memories. Munshi was profoundly versed in ancient
India’s literary and cultural achievements, besides being a
creative writer par excellence. Uttar Pradesh, which had made
a rich contribution to the country’s ancient and medieval
civilization, had great attraction for him. Broadcasting from the
Lucknow Station of All-India Radio on June 4, 1952, he
expressed his happiness to be in the State. He said: “Though
not born in Uttar Pradesh, I have lived here, apart from
temporary visits, in imagination, study and sentiment for a very
long time”. After recalling the importance and the splendour of
places like Lucknow, Agra and ancient Kannauj, he spoke
ecstatically about those massive and towering mountains, the
Himalayas. “Here you have”, he said, “the Himalayas of the
‘Divine Soul’, the Lord of the Mountains, the source of all the
security, plenty and beauty in India. A slice of it was ancient
Aryavarta, with Naimisharanya, from where sprang the streams
of truth and beauty which have helped our race to a higher life
of the Spirit at its heart”.*

Munshi did not anticipate any conflict with the
U.P Council of Ministers. He had known Pant from 1937 when
the Congress undertook the responsibilities of government in
most of the provinces. Pant’s successor, Dr. Sampurnanand,
was also well-known to him. Again, a number of Ministers were

*Sparks from a Governor's Anvil by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Vol. I,
Information Directorate, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, July 1956, pp. 2, 3.

I4.473 M. of I & B/ND/81.

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K. M. Munshi

acquainted with him. Munshi thus embarked upon his new office
with the determination to make it eventful. His views on the
powers of Governor were well-known. As we saw in an earlier
chapter, he was among the most active participants in the
deliberations of the Constituent Assembly and had been of great
help to Sardar Patel in sponsoring the Bill on the States
constitution. The constitution-makers had no hesitation in
adopting the Government of India Act, 1935, as the model for
the State's constitution. The crucial issue was, however, the
scope of the Governor’s powers. None, of course, wanted to
arm that functionary with a plenitude of discretionary
powers and special responsibilities and with the right to exercise
his individual judgment. There was a consensus that the
Governor of a State in free India should essentially be a
constitutional head.

Some members, however, went to the extreme of
suggesting that the Governor should be no more than an
ornamental head instead of being the guardian of good and
democratic government in his State. Speaking in the Constituent
Assembly on May 23, 1949, Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar
maintained that, with the introduction of responsible government
in the States, the role of the Governor would be strictly
constitutional. He, however, suggested that only men of
“undoubted ability” should be selected. “The central fact to be
remembered”, he said, “is that the Governor is to be a
constitutional head, a sagacious counsellor and adviser to the
Ministry, one who can throw oil over troubled waters”.*
Dr. Ambedkar did not mince words when he said: “The position
of the Governor is exactly the same as the position of the
President”. He left none in doubt about the implication of this

* Constituent Assembly Debates:Official Report, Volume 8,
pp. 431-32.

Minister and Governor

213

dictum. He said : “The Governor under the Constitution has no
functions which he can discharge by himself, no functions at all”.

There was, however, an influential section of opinion,
which felt the need for endowing the Governor with the ultimate
authority as a safeguard against misrule. Sardar, Patel recalled
that many Prime Ministers of Provinces and others with much
experience with the constitution, considered it dangerous not to
provide for an emergency. Sir Benegal Narsinga Rau, an
eminent jurist, observed that for the most part, the Governor
would act on advice, but there were certain functions where
even a responsible head had to exercise his discretion, e.g. the
choice of the Prime (now Chief) Minister, the dissolution of the
legislature and so on. “In the present circumstances”, he wrote,
“similar discretion may have to be vested in the Governor in the
matter of the protection of the minorities and maintenance of
law and order”*.

Munshi held strong views on the subject. He feared that
unfettered cabinet government was apt to degenerate into
executive despotism. He was anxious that responsible government
should not be divorced from good government and wanted the
Governor to be entrusted with the duty of ensuring such a
dispensation. He fought hard in the Constituent Assembly for
clothing the Governor with effective powers and at one stage
sponsored an amendment which practically reproduced Section
93 of the Act of 1935. This Section empowered the Governor
to issue proclamations in the event of a breakdown of the
constitution. Long after he laid down the office of Governor and
after carefully watching the change in the calibre and the style
of functioning of the Governors, he found that his conviction

* Indian Constitution in the Making by Sir Bengal Narsinga Rau,
Allied Publishers, 1963, p. 170.

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K. M. Munshi

about the need for looking upon the Governor as the guardian
of responsible and efficient government was sound. “The
President and the Governors”, he wrote, provide a network of
unified power for the whole country. It is of the highest
importance, therefore, to maintain it. The Governor is the agent
of the President and, qua the administration of the State, the
constitutional head with certain express powers”# . As in the
case of the President, the Constitution defines the powers of the
Governor at length. It was Munshi’s considered opinion that in
a written constitution if the text was explicit it was conclusive
and could not lend itself to any wishful interpretation.

Munshi was the Governor of Uttar Pradesh from 1952 to
1957. During that period he had no occasion to test his beliefs
about that office. There was complete rapport between him and
his Council of Ministers. The ministers respect him for his
emdition and experience as an administrator and were impressed
by his profound knowledge of constitutional law and legal
principles. A man of his versatility and wide ranging vision was
an undoubted asset to them. Munshi in his turn fully recognised
the responsibilities of his Council of Ministers. Pant, the Chief
Minister, was a man of towering personality, with considerable
administrative experience, besides being a great stabilising force
in his State. His successor, Dr. Sampumanand, was not only a
scholar but also a politician of considerable weight and
shrewdness. The other members of the Council of Ministers
were also men of ability They were tried patriots and were
eager to serve the State with diligence and in the lofty spirit of
self-abnegation. Munshi toured the State extensively, came into
contact with the various elements of the population, and gained
a first-hand knowledge of their wants and wishes. He drew up
detaile notes on the basis of the impressions gathered by him

# Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume 1, p. 270.

Minister and Governor

215

and sent them to the ministers concerned. His good offices in
bringing the people closer to the cabinet through this medium
were appreciated. “He performed”, say the Editors of the
Volumes on Munshi, “to the full the political function to be the
constitutional head of the government. He maintained the
dignity, the stability and the collective responsibility of the
Government and exercised substantial and helpful influence”*.

As Chancellor, Munshi gave a good deal of his time and
attention to the affairs of the universities in the State which were
seven in number in his time. They were Allahabad university,.
Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University, Lucknow
University, Agra University, Roorkee University and Gorakhpur
University, the last-named university coming into existence in
1957. Munshi liked this kind of work and was conversant with
it since his election as Fellow of Bombay University as far back
as 1926. He had in fact made a penetrating study of the history
of education in India and had read with deep interest the abiding
contribution made by such celebrated seats of learning as
Takshasila, Nalanda, Vallal hi, Vikramasila and Kanchi to the
extension of human kno fledge. He admired the manner in
which mind and matter had achieved a complete synthesis in
ancient Indian leai ling. It was, of course, impossible to
resurrect the past be i he thought that there was much scope for
reforming the curre it system of higher education. He was
convinced that, as Chancellor, he was under no constitutional
obligation to carry his Council of Ministers with him in whatever
reforms he proposed to introduce in the realm of higher
education in the State. His stand, explained in a detailed note,
was supported by the Chief Minister, Pandit Pant.

Munshi strove hard to transform the universities within his
jurisdiction into temples of learning. He also wanted them to be

* Munshi: His Art and Work, volume II, pp. 339-40.

216

K. M. Munshi

the top storey of the educational structure as well as the seed¬
beds of ability, continually turning out a body of talented young
men and young women to take up the country’s leadership.
Besides teaching a wide variety of modem skills, they should
stimulate the powers of the mind and should become the
“sanctuaries of the inner life of the nation”. In short, he wanted
Indian universities to be true to the ideals of the past and, as
institutions of higher learning, seek to transcend time and
geography. He naturally felt that they should be untrammelled in
regulating their own affairs in order to fulfil this exalted mission.
Indeed, university autonomy was an article of faith with him.
Addressing the Allahabad University Staff Club on August 6,
1952, he said: “You can take it from me that am a staunch
believer in the autonomy of a university. In the field of learning,
men should be free to pursue their own line of thought, or to
express their own opinions, so long as they are on an academic
level. This is the essence of democracy, and in so far as it lies
in me, I have always fought for, and will fight for autonomy of
the universities”.*

At the same time, Munshi expected the teachers to attain
the highest proficiency in their profession and to dedicate
themselves to the task of preparing their pupils for life and
livelihood. “No teacher”, declared the University Education
Commission, presided over by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan “who is
not a master of the field, who is not in touch with the latest
developments in his subject. and who does not bring to bear
upon his duties a free and untrammelled mind will ever succeed
in inspiring youth with that love of truth which is the principal
object of higher education”/ Munshi entirely agreed with this

* Sparks from a Governor's Anvil by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Volume
I, p. 27.

#The Report of the University Education Commission — December
1948 — August 1949, Volume 1, p. 69.

Minister and Governor

217

point of view. He was equally insistent that students seeking
higher education must realise their responsibilities and make a
disciplined and diligent endeavour to study and to enlarge their
minds as a necessary preparation for assuming the country’s
leadership. Addressing the Allahabad Branch of the Chancellor’s
Inter-University Camp on March 4, 1955, he deplored
“indiscipline and vulgarity” among section of the students and
posed several questions to the erring youngmen. He said: “I ask
you, friends, who going to be the leaders of tomorrow, are we
going to destroy our future by an exhibition of such attempted
coercion? And think for a moment: Why does this kind of
demonstration make the noise that it does?” He asked the
students to remember that India had a role to play more
important than that of “an ordinary democratic State. It is
charged by history with the mission to bring a happier world
into existence parks where war will be unknown, where hatred
will have disappeared”.*

Munshi devised a new method in an effort to galvanise
university life in the State and to provide a cure to some of the
ills in the system of higher education. He held periodical
conferences with the Vice Chancellors and Deans of the
Universities, not merely to consider how best student turbulence
could be controlled, but also to provide a platform for them to
discuss their common problems, to adopt measures for avoiding
duplication of expensive specialised studies, and to deliberate
on improving the academic standards and the welfare of
teachers and students. He also held at regular intervals the
Chancellor’s Camp. Teachers and students were invited to stay
in the Government House as his guests for a couple of weeks
at a time. The aim of the Camp was to promote the goal of

* Sparks from a Governor's Anvil by Dr. K.M. Munshi, Volume II, pp.
223-24.

218

K. M. Munshi

making the universities true institutions of higher learning and
culture, to foster a genuine pride in the country’s heritage, and
to revive the ancient ashram principle of creating a feeling of
oneness among the teachers and the taught. Besides conducting
lectures and seminars on various subjects, prayers and recitation
of the Bhagvad Gita, the Song Celestial, were arranged. The
experiment proved popular and it certainly helped to curb
student violence. Munshi’s term of office as Governor was thus
eventful. He has won a well-deserved place in the galaxy of
outstanding Governors that have inhabited the Government
Houses, now Raj Bhavans, in the country since independence.

XIII

Education and
National Language

AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITIES in Uttar
^radesh, Munshi was able to revitalise them because he
was not only an eminent intellectual and a man of versatile
talents, but also an experienced educationist. Since he became
a member of the Senate of Bombay University, one of the three
oldest British-modelled universities in India, in January 1926, he
took sustained interest in higher education. He was not a policy¬
maker but he missed no opportunity of telling both the
Government and the people of this country that the prevailing
system of education was wholly unsuited to Indian requirements.
Its over-emphasis on proficiency in English and its glorification
of Western heroes and Western culture were a hindrance to the
growth of pride among young Indians in their own heritage.
Besides, being narrowly based, it merely created a small clan of
elite, excluding the bulk of the population from the benefits of
higher education. It also dug a gulf between the English-
educated class and the rest.

The shortcomings of the university system were obvious,
but Munshi did not want that the opportunities for acquiring
higher education should be confined to a few. He wanted more
and more universities to be opened in different parts of the
country. Such a project had long been under the consideration
of the Government of India. As far back as 1913, it expressed

220

K. M. Munshi

the view that every important province in the country should
have a university of its own. There were at the time only five
universities in the whole of British India. It also encouraged the
creation of “new local teaching and residential universities within
each of the province in harmony with the best modem opinion
as to the right road to educational efficiency”. In the polyglot
Bombay province there was a persistent demand by the
Marathi-speaking educationists and others that each of its
regional units must have a university of its own. In 1917, Sir
Narayan Chandavarkar, a Judge of the Bombay High Court,
asked for a separate university for Maharashtra in his presidential
address to the Bombay Presidency Educational Conference.

Munshi was elected to the Syndicate of Bombay University
in August 1926 and was invited by the Vice Chancellor, Sir
Chimanlal Setalvad, to take active interest in its various
activities. Sir Leslie Wilson, Governor of Bombay, was well-
disposed towards the Maharashtrians and asked Dr. M. R.
Jayakar, one of their leading men, how best he could help them
before his retirement. Jayakar, who had long been cmsading for
a separate university to be located at Poona, suggested that his
much-cherished wish should be fulfilled. He explained that
Bombay University could not effectively “attend to the
educational problems peculiar to such distant and dissimilar
areas as Sind, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Bombay.
The result was that the educational interests of these outlying
parts of the Presidency suffered grievously”. The “overweighted”
University of Bombay needed to be cut to size “at whatever
cost”. Munshi held similar views and strongly supported the
establishment of a separate university at Poona. His plea for
setting up a similar institution of higher learning at Ahmedabad
was heartily endorsed by the Marathi-speaking educationists.

Education and National Language

221

A Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Chimanlal
Setalvad was appointed by the Government of Bombay to
make recommendations on the question of university reform. It
was also asked to “investigate the relations between the
university and its affiliated colleges both in Bombay city and in
the mofussil, and to consider whether it is desirable and feasible
to institute other universities at mofussil centres”. The expert
body came to the conclusion that the city of Bombay had a
“multiplicity of interests”, its major preoccupation being commerce
and industry. It could not, therefore, serve as an ideal guardian
of the educational and cultural needs of the outlying districts of
the Province. “A local university, it said, “would be inspired by,
and would foster enthusiastic interest in local conditions of life
and thought, past and present”. The Bombay Government took
no action on the Setalvad Committee’s recommendations, but
the agitation for separate universities to be located at Poona,
Ahmedabad and Dharwad continued.

Munshi was not much discouraged by the Government’s
inaction. He knew the Baroda State well since he had been a
student in its local college. The ruler, Maharaja Sayajirao
Gaekwad, was an enlightened and forward-looking man who
was determined to make his administration at least as enlightened
as its British Indian counterpart. On behalf of the Gujarat
University Samiti, Munshi met the Maharaja and explained to
him his project. Soon after, a Commission under the Chairmanship
of Professor Widgery was appointed to report on the feasibility
of establishing such an institution in the State. Munshi was a
member of the expert body which met at Baroda in October
1926. From what he heard and saw there, it became clear to
him that Baroda could not at that time become an ideal venue
for a university of his conception. The Commission never
functioned vigorously. Before leaving the Baroda State Service,
the Chairman, drew up his own report without consulting the

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members of the Commission. Munshi submitted separate
proposals to the State Government which took no action on
either of them. Baroda received its own university in 1949, the
year in which it ceased to be a principality.

In 1927, Munshi decided, in response to Sir Chimanlal
Setalvad’s suggestion, to contest the university seat in the
Bombay Legislative Council following its vacation by
Dr. (later Sir) Raghunath R Paranjpye who was given an
assignment in London. Munshi threw himself into the electoral
fray with his characteristic zeal and thoroughness, touring the
sprawling province from one end to the other. He told the
graduate voters that he would strive for the enactment of a new
university legislation for the creation of a representative Senate
and for the establishment of a Department of Technology. He
would also try to get separate universities for Maharashtra and
Gujarat. He explained that the function of a university should be
not merely to affiliate colleges and to conduct examinations but
also to undertake the responsibility of teaching. He also urged
that a proper academic “atmosphere” should be created in a
university. “This atmosphere”, he wrote, “is created by its
professors, its traditions, its learning by an esprit de corps
among its students, teachers and professors, by consciousness
of cultural unity as represented by the university, and by a high
ideal of knowledge pursued, not merely for the sake of the
information required but for its own extension and always with
reference to the attainment of truth’ ”. Munshi won the election
and took his seat in the Bombay Legislative Council in 1927.

Repeated disappointments did not dampen his ardour for
setting up more universities in India. In 1944, he was in Udaipur
to preside over the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan when he met the
Maharana of that State, Bhupal Singh. He soon became the
Constitutional Adviser to the ruler and proposed to him to start

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a university at Chitor to be named after his illustrious ancestor,
Maharana Pratap Singh. Todd in his Annals and Antiquities of
Rajasthan writes: “Pratap succeeded to the titles and renown
of an illustrious house, but without a capital, without resources,
his kindred and clans dispirited by reverses : yet possessed by
the noble spirit of his race, he meditated the recovery of Chitor,
the vindication of the honour of his house and the restoration
of its power”. His heroic stand against the overwhelmingly
superior military might of the Moguls in the memorable battle of
Haldighat on June 21, 1576, has won for him imperishable fame
as a warrior of incomparable courage and fortitude. It was to
perpetuate the name of this legendary figure that Munshi wanted
the ruling Maharaja to establish a seat of learning at Chitor.

In making his suggestions, Munshi did not surrender
himself merely to sentiment and emotion. He had good reasons
for proposing the founding of a university away from large cities
and towns. He pointed out in his scheme that education
acquired amidst metropolitan surroundings tended to weigh the
scales heavily on the side of mundane pursuits. It was apt to be
used as an “instrument for making money”. The true aim of
higher education should be to encourage the spirit of enquiry in
the student by stimulating his capacity for thought and reflection
and to inspire in him a genuine respect for literary traditions and
the immemorial culture of the land. Chitor, he felt, would
become an ideal venue for the pursuit of this national goal.
Besides being far away from the madding crowds, it was
looked upon as a “national centre of heroism”. The place was
relatively cheap and accessible. The feasibility of the project
had been examined earlier by a Committee appointed by the
Rajasthan Kshatriya Mahasabha. Munshi had no doubt in his
mind that a university at Chitor would thrive, but the time was
not propitious for initiating any worthwhile move in that
direction. The minds of the policy-makers were almost exclusively

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pre-occupied with the problem of the country’s constitutional
future so that other issues were relegated to the background.

The agitation for a separate university was conducted by
the Marathi-speaking leaders with such pertinacity that it
became impossible for the Bombay Government to shelve the
issue. The Government found it necessary to commit itself firmly
to the principle of establishing regional universities in the
province. Expert bodies were accordingly appointed to make
recommendations towards this end. On April 21, 1947 a
Committee under the chairmanship of justice M. C. Chagla was
appointed “to make recommendations as to the scope, form,
constitution and jurisdiction of a university for Gujarat, including
the question of granting affiliation to institutions outside the limits
of the Bombay Province”. Munshi, who was a member of the
Committee, wrote a note on the medium of instruction, saying
that adoption of Gujarati as an optional medium in the university
as suggested in the report, would adversely affect its academic
standards. He, therefore, suggested that “Hindi should be
accepted as the principal medium in the proposed university and
that for a period of five years English should be permitted as an
optional medium. After the period of five years, Hindi should
become the principal medium of instruction with optional English
in such subjects as have no essential literature available in
Hindi”. Gujarat University was established at Ahmedabad in
1950. In the previous year, Poona and Karnataka Universities,
the latter situated at Dharwad, had been brought into existence.

Munshi, who had made a penetrating study of India’s
ancient history and culture, had developed a habitual vision of
her greatness. To make his countrymen better aware of the
antiquity, the vastness and the splendour of their heritage
became the mission of his life. The country’s immense treasure-
house of knowledge and wisdom was embodied mostly in

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Sanskrit and he thought that the surest way of reviving at least
part of its past glory was to create a wider interest in this
classical language. “For a thousand years”, he declared on
October 8, 1953, “the greatest integrating force in India was
Sanskrit”. On February 16, 1955, he declared in his address to
the annual Convocation of the Utkala Sanskrit Parishad at Puri
that Sanskrit was “one of the greatest classical languages of the
world” and that for us Indians it was “the source and symbol of
our great heritage”.*

Munshi did not exaggerate. Indologists like Nathaniel
Halhed, Charles Wilkins, William Jones, H. H. Wilson and
Henry Colebrooke, to mention the names of only a few British
officials of the East India Company who served in this country
in the eighteenth century, have by their scholarly labours and
utterances expressed their deep admiration for this language.
Many of them were in fact “Sanskrit mad”. Sir William Jones
belonged to a class by himself. He was acclaimed as a “prodigy
of learning” and his knowledge of Sanskrit was believed to be
unrivalled. As the President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he
wrote in 1786 thus about Sanskrit: “The Sanskrit language,
whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure, more
perfect than Greel , more copious than Latin, and more

exquisitely refined than either . ” An eminent Indian scholar,

Dr. Belvalkar, Director of Research, Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute, held that “next to one’s own mother tongue
which everyone inevitably learns by Nature’s method, the first
language, the study of which ought to be academically pursued,
is and ought to be Sanskrit, the language of India’s culture
and traditions”.#

* Sparks from a Governor's Anvil by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 320
and Volume II, p. 216.

#The Report of the University Education Commission,
December 1948- August 1949, p. 131.

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K. M. Munshi

It was indeed the pioneering labours of the European
Indologists that evoked global interest in Indian contribution to
human civilization. Since then the antiquity, the depth and the
great empirical quality of Hindu thought have exercised a
profound influence on many distinguished Western scholars and
philosophers. Schopenhauer, the great German thinker, declared:
“The study of the Upanishads has been the solace of my life; it
will be the solace of my death"’. Endorsing this remarkable
affirmation of faith, the eminent Professor Max Muller said: “I
am neither afraid nor ashamed to say that I share his enthusiasm
for Vedanta, and feel indebted to it for much that has been
helpful to me in my passage through life”. It is small wonder that
Munshi strove to make the study of Sanskrit in all its depth and
amplitude a national undertaking.

He was not attempting the impossible. It has lcng been
accepted by scholars that India’s great classical language is a
distant cousin of most of the European languages. After the
composition of the Rig Veda, the oldest religious text in the
world composed probably between 1500 and 900 B.C.,
Sanskrit developed considerably, but it was probably never
spoken by the masses in its classical form. It was certainly read
and spoken by the upper class since it was the official language
of both religion and State. It is quite possible that it was
somewhat understood by a sizeable section of the population.
As Munshi rightly maintained, it served as a lingua franca for
the whole of India. Even today, inspite of the growing
importance of regional languages and the ascendancy of English
in the institutions of higher learning, scholars in traditional
learning hailing from different parts of the country, converse
fluently in Sanskrit when they assemble at conferences or in
places of pilgrimage. The thousands of pathashalas, situated in
different parts of the country and teaching Sanskrit grammar
and classics in the traditional style, the Sanskrit universities that

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have come into existence since independence and other
institutions with a better awareness of the value of cultivating this
great language, have helped to keep the lamp of Sanskrit
learning burning.

An historic occasion provided Munshi the long awaited
opportunity to launch an organised drive to revive his
countrymen’s interest in the study of Sanskrit. The hare-brained
Nawab of Junagadh in Saurashtra had rashly announced the
State’s accession to Pakistan, a distant country with which the
people and the State of Junagadh had no manner of connection.
A man of action par excellence, Sardar Patel, the Deputy
Prime Minister, directed the occupation of the State in
November 1947 by the Indian troops. In February 1948, a
referendum was held when the people of Junagadh
over-whelmingly voted in favour of remaining in India, their and
their ancestors, motherland from time immemorial. Decision was
taken to reconstruct the great Somnath temple which had been
sacked and destroyed by Mahmud of Ghazni in January 1025
A.D. The Sardar invited Munshi to draw up a scheme for this
purpose. In doing so, he could not have asked a more
competent person. Munshi had done a good deal of historical
research on the Somnath temple which before its destruction
was as famous as the Vishwanath shrine at Banaras. For several
centuries it was also a celebrated seat of learning where Shaivite
teachers of national reputation taught. Mahmud’s vandalism did
not deprive the shrine of its sanctity. We are told that during the
Moghul period even Muslim merchants going to the port of
Prabhas in Saurashtra took offerings to the temple.

The decision to renovate the Somnath temple was taken
when Mahatma Gandhi was still alive. With the Prime Minister
in the chair, the Union Cabinet agreed to defray the cost, but,
at the instance of the Mahatma, it was decided that the required

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finances should be raised from the public. The Government
appointed an Advisory Committee, with Munshi as the Chairman,
to assume responsibility for the reconstruction of the shrine.
Munshi played a great part in preparing the Trust Deed of the
temple. He was convinced that new brick and mortar alone
could not restore the shrine to its pristine glory. As in the past,
it must become a great centre of education with the capacity to
attract students and scholars from all parts of the country. The
Trust Deed accordingly provided for the establishment of one or
more institutions there, including a university, to impart education
of a type that would enable its recipients to gain a sound
knowledge of the immemorial wisdom and pieties of the land.
The study of Sanskrit was to become the foundation of the new
system of education.

Munshi was never tired of declaring that Sanskrit was the
greatest fertiliser of the Indian languages. He had achieved
considerable mastery in Gujarati, his mother tongue, and was
producing in it literature of enduring value, but his passion for
the study of Sanskrit remained undiminished. He wrote : “I am
not indifferent to the study of modem Indian languages. I cannot
be. For 35 years now, I have given of my best to Gujarati. My
faith in Hindi as the national language of India is unshaken. I
have admired the piquancy and raciness of Marathi and the
grace of Bengali. But as a truly formative and inspiring influence,
nothing compares with the study of Sanskrit”. It is small wonder
that the Tmst Deed prepared by him for the Somnath temple
assigned a key role to the study of the classical language in the
proposed educational institutions. It also provided for encouraging
research in Sanskrit learning, for the publication of Hindu
religious and secular literature and for popularising the classical
language among the general public.

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The ceremony of opening the renovated temple was
performed on May 11, 1951. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, President
of India, who was present on the occasion, delivered a
memorable speech on the importance of the event. Recalling the
glory of India’s past, the President said : “In that era, India had

been a treasure-house of gold and silver . Centuries

ago, the major portion of the gold of the world was in the
temples of India. It is my view that the reconstruction of the
Somnath temple will be complete on that day when not only a
magnificent edifice will arise on this foundation, but the mansion

of India’s prosperity will be ready . that prosperity of

which the ancient temple of Somnath was a symbol”.*

On that day, when delegates from nineteen universities
were present, a Sanskrit Parishad was inaugurated by the
President of the Indian National Congress, Purushottamdas
Tandon. He appealed to the scholars to appreciate the value of
Sanskrit in sustaining and revitalising the Indian culture. The
Maharaja of Travancore, who presided over the function,
reminded his countrymen that Sanskrit symbolised the
homogeneity and the oneness of India. It was felt that the
dissemination of Sanskrit learning should transcend the national
frontiers and must have a global reach. Dr. Rajendra Prasad
gave his wholehearted support to the suggestion for promoting
a world academy of Sanskrit.

At the conference Munshi moved a resolution which reads
in parts thus: “We the delegates of the Akhil Bharatitya Sanskrit
Parishad now assembled at Prabhas declare in all solemnity and
faith that Sanskrit is the language of India’s culture and
inspiration, that it is the world’s classical language and the key
to a true understanding of India’s cultural and spiritual greatness,

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p. 288.

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K. M. Munshi

and that through Sanskrit and its allied languages, particularly
Pali and Prakrit, the world can realise the life of the spirit
enshrined in them”. The resoluton also envisaged the establishment
of a Sanskrit Visva Parishad to work in association with the
Somnath Trust. The resolution was seconded by Justice N. H.
Bhagwati. Dr. Rajendra Prasad was unanimously elected
President of the new world academy of Sanskrit. Later, a centre
of the Parishad was opened in America. The American
Academy of Asian Studies agreed to propagate the message of
the Parishad under the direction of L. P. Gainsborough.
Branches were later opened in Sri Lanka, Germany and Japan.

Munshi did not rest on his oars. He wrote to lovers of
Sanskrit in India and abroad, telling them how best its study
could be advanced and with what advantage to general
enlightenment. He saw to it that the Visva Parishad held its
annual sessions regularly. At its fourth session, held in Tirupati,
the famous place of pilgrimage in Andhra Pradesh, and attended
by some 15,00 delegates, an influential body was set up to meet
Government leaders in order to apprise them of the importance
of revitalising Sanskrit learning. In February 1956, it asked the
Government to set up an all-India Board of Sanskrit Studies
with a view to coordinating, standardising and promoting
Sanskrit studies all over the country by “both modern and
traditional methods”. It also suggested the establishment of a
Central Institute “to promote higher study and learning, and
research in Sanskrit”. A high-power Commission was appointed
by the Government in October 1956 to study the prevailing
state of Sanskrit education in the country and to make
recommendations for its improvement. Thanks to Munshi ’s
indefatigable labours, Sri Venkateswara University at Tirupati
was established in 1954 and two years later Kurukshetra
University came into existence. In 1958, the Varanaseya

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Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya was set up at Banaras; three years
later it was followed by K. S. Darbhanga Sanskrit
Vishwavidyalaya. It is difficult to think of any other leader who
laboured so hard and so constructively for the revival of
Sanskrit studies in India as Munshi did. He gave them pride of
place in the activities of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which he
founded in November 1938. It was indeed in the fitness of
things that he was invited to inaugurate the All-India Sanskrit
Conference in 1945.

Munshi was an ardent advocate of Hindi as India’s
national language. He had been championing its cause long
before the Constitution raised it to the status of the official
language of the Indian Union in 1950. In his Presidential
address to the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan at Udaipur, he called
attention to the census figures of 1931, according to which
those who spoke Hindi well and those who spoke it with a
slight effort formed 69 per cent of the population of the country.
On the strength of these statistics, he maintained that there was
no need to make Hindi the national language because it was
already one. The great religious and social reformer, Swami
Dayanand Saraswati (1824- 1883), who hailed from Morvi in
Gujarat, had elevated it to that status long before any concerted
move was made in that direction.

Munshi wanted all Indian languages to develop and thus be
able to contribute to the enrichment of Indian literature. It was
indeed his ambition to create what he called a “commonwealth
of literatures” in this country. Such a commonwealth, he wrote,
could only be rendered possible “through the medium of Hindi
and implies a coordinated effort on the part of the literary men
from all provinces”. Once this goal was reached, it would be
possible to create “federation” of provincial “Sahitya Parishads
and thus pave the way for the establishment of an all-India

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literary body. He had been yearning to promote such literary
unity in the country from the time he became closely associated
with the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad. It was not an utopian
concept and was well received by discerning men of letters. To
propagate this idea, he started a monthly magazine called Hans
in Hindi with himself and Premchand, the great Hindi novelist,
as joint editors. The venture was blessed by Mahatma Gandhi
and achieved instant success. Many writers from different parts
of the country found their place in it, but the career of the
magazine was meteoric. It disappeared from the Indian literary
firmament in less than a year.

Munshi had, however, no illusions about the limitation of
Hindi as a medium of modern thought. Like all other Indian
languages, it had suffered centuries of stagnation during the
British period. Like them, it had lost its resilience in order to be
able to turn out good and adequate literature in science and
technology and in various other branches of modem knowledge.
Far from providing a window on the world, it had not even
been able to supply a pee-phole. He, therefore, wanted it to
shed its backwardness and become a living and dynamic vehicle
of expression to meet the manifold needs of a modem society.
It could hope to win the allegiance of the majority of the Indian
people only if it was atleast one lap ahead of the most advanced
languages in the country. It could achieve this distinction if it
could create conditions when words came, to use the felicitous
phrase of Bacon, home to men’s business and bosoms. Even
after he had played a leading role in getting Hindi written into
the Constitution as the Union Government’s official language, he
conducted a ceaseless campaign for vitalising that language so
that it could become worthy of its elevation. For instance, on
February 17, 1953, he said at Aligarh: “For the purpose of
developing power, Hindi has to be viewed in the aspects both
of a spoken language of popular use and as the medium of

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higher expression . In the second aspect, as a

national medium of power, it must produce a vocabulary
acceptable to the bulk of the country; to incorporate new words
and idioms freely, not only from other Indian, but even foreign
languages; and, lastly, to acquire the freedom and elasticity, not
only to absorb new elements, but to reach out to a higher
expression of thought and beauty”.*

Munshi’s attitude to English was clear and realistic. He
refused to envisage a day when its use could be dispensed with
in this country. He rejected the argument that, being a foreign
language, it needed to be expelled. Such “hypersensitive
nationalism”, he was convinced, would do no good to anybody.
On October 8, 1953, he warned the Bharatiya Hindi Parishad
thus: “If you emphasise the elimination of English too insistently,
Hindi will not gain, but lose; nationalism will suffer an eclipse;
regional consciousness will grow; and the linguistic balkanisation
of India will bring about serious consequences”. He invented the
expressive word “linguism” to describe linguistic intolerance

. a term which has not yet found a place in the English

vocabulary.

He spoke and wrote repeatedly on India’s indebtedness to
the English language. Besides broadening the mental horizon of
the intellectual classes, it stimulated in them, and through them
in others, a passionate desire for national freedom. Its
cultivation has helped Indians to be in close touch with the
various developments in modem arts and sciences. India’s pre¬
eminence in the third world is due not a little to her ability to
move with the times through the instrumentality of this great
language. A survey of the position of English in other parts of the
world reveals that since the Second World War, it has gained

* Sparks from a Governor's Anvil by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Volume I, p.
223.

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K. M. Munshi

considerable international popularity. In the domain of medical
research, it has become an indispensable medium. In Europe,
the results of medical research have got to be published in
English if they are to reach a wide audience. The Germans are
a proud race but they are highly pragmatic. For years past, an
increasing number of German medical journals have been asking
authors to submit their manuscripts in English. “In science”,
says a perceptive foreign writer, “it is not a question of personal
feeling or favouring national languages but of the attempt to
develop one means of communication for all”.

It was only to be expected that Munshi’s love for Hindi did
not blind him to the realities of the Indian and international
situation. He commended English to his countrymen in these
eloquent words : “The introduction of English in India was no
ordinary event. When English came to us, the world entered a
new age. India joined the brotherhood of the English-speaking
world. It led, as I have said, to a cultural upheaval in India, to
a wide vision. The barriers of latitude, colour and race were
broken down; the East mingled with the West in the sphere of
the mind; a great step was taken towards establishing direct
human intercourse, and sweeping away national frontiers....
Today, English is ours, and with its aid we can make ourselves
felt more than through any other agency. It would, therefore, be
criminal to ignore or neglect English in this country”.* The length
of the passage calls for no apology since it vividly portrays
Munshi’s convictions on an issue of vital national importance.

Munshi was, however, even more convinced that in a
polyglot country like India with its strong centrifugal tendencies,
a national language was indispensable to promote and sustain a
single consciousness among its people. After much reflection,

* Munshi at Seventy-five, quoted on p. 138.

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he had come to the conclusion that Hindi alone could play this
role. It was not an easy task to secure its acceptance in the
Constituent Assembly. Not only the South, but several other
non-Hindi regions were not prepared to accord to it any
primacy over their own tongues. Speaking in the Constituent
Assembly on September 13, 1949, T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar
declared that the language question meant “life and death for the
South”. He added: “We have got languages which are better
cultivated and which have greater literature than Hindi in our
areas”. After making a claim to the distinctiveness of Tamil, his
mother tongue, he told the members from the North that unless
they made “everybody feel that they have got a share in the
country and it is their country, unless you do that, if you go on
keeping the spirit of domination of one part over the other, I am
sure the result is not going to be for the progress or for the
safety of the country”.# In the previous year, on November 5,
T. T. Krishnamachari, who later held responsible positions in the
Nehru Cabinet, said that among the various forms of imperialism,
lignuistic imperialism was the most powerful one. Dr. Shyama
Prasad Mookerjee, a front rank leader from West Bengal and
founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, said that by merely
making provision for a language in the Constitution, the task of
giving the country a common language could not be
accomplished. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad said that there was
no “national language as such which can immediately take the
place of English. Time is needed to evolve it, brush it,
and polish it”.

The task before Munshi for getting Hindi accepted as the
official language by the Constituent Assembly was thus not easy.
After presiding over the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan at Udaipur, his
fame as the champion of that language had read among the

^Constituent Assembly Debates : Official Report, Volume 9, p. 1375.

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K. M. Munshi

Hindi-speaking people. It was hoped by them that his
persuasive ability and eloquence would ensure the acceptance
of their mother tongue as the country’s official language. Munshi
had, however, to watch his steps carefully. He teamed up with
N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, like him an active participant in the
discussion on constitution-making and an influential member
from the South, in evolving a formula on the thorny issue.
Ayyangar, who supported the plea for the adoption of Hindi as
the language of the Union, called attention to the need for the
retention of English — “a language in which many of us have
been reared and on the strength of which we have achieved
our freedom”.

Munshi has recorded that he, Dr. Shyama Prasad
Mookerjee and Ayyangar met and decided to break the
language deadlock by evolving a suitable modus vivendi : He
persuaded the Congress party, which held a dominant position
in the Constituent Assembly, to adopt a resolution moved by
him on the issue. According to the compromise proposal, Hindi
with the Devanagari script should be the Indian Government’s
official language. English should also hold that position for a
period of ten years. The proposal received wide support. Thus
what has come to be known as the Munshi- Ayyangar formula
prevailed and, with suitable modifications, was eventually
incorporated into the Constitution as Articles 343 and 344. In
a tribute to Munshi on his contribution to the cause of Hindi,
Professor Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Member of Parliament and
a leading Hindi poet and writer, said : “The Indian people as a
whole will always gratefully remember the far-sighted service
rendered to the country by Munshi in making Hindi attain the
stature of the national language”.

In the following years, the language question caused much
distress to Munshi. No systematic attempts were made to rescue

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237

Hindi from the trammels of stagnation and to make it widely
acceptable as a worthy vehicle of modem thought. The South and
more especially Tamilnadu, resolved not to have anything to do
with it. Even more alarming was the growth of regional
chauvinism, represented by a relentless campaign for the creation
of linguistic states. He was not opposed to the reorganisation of
the provincial boundaries on rational lines. The existence of five
hundred odd Princely States and a number of British Indian
provinces conformed to no accepted canons of territorial or
administrative demarcation. For instance, the area inhabited by
the Kannada speaking people was divided between the provinces
of Bombay and Madras, Mysore State, Coorg, the Southern
Maratha Country States, and a petty principality in the second-
named province. The position of Gujarat was no better. It was
split up into the British Indian districts of Bombay Presidency, the
Baroda State, the Gujarat States, the Kathiawad States and
Kutch. Such an outrageous arrangement needed to be ended and
Munshi was all for it. Under Sardar Patel’s statesman-like drive,
the almost impossible task of integrating the princely India with
the rest of the country became an accomplished fact. But Munshi
had not bargained for the reorganisation to take the form of
mutually-exclusive and self-regarding units. He always looked
upon Gujarat essentially as a cultural unit and not as an
autonomous region wanting to live in a state of semi-isolation
from the rest of the country. His patriotism was too robust to
succumb to such parochial attractions.

He was, therefore, much worried when he saw that soon
after independence, there was a clamant demand from many
quarters for the creation of linguistic states. It is true that long
before national freedom the Congress had committed itself to
redraw the country’s administrative map on those lines.
Mahatma Gandhi was also a party to it. But the situation that
faced free India was so different that past pledges had ceased

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K. M. Munshi

to be relevant. The partition of the country was, as Nehru
pointed out, a “major operation”, calling for a long period of
treatment to heal the wound. Besides, Swaraj had been won
after making solemn promises to the masses that their welfare
would be the first concern of the free Indian Government. In the
words of the Prime Minister, first things had to come first, they
being the protection of the national frontiers, the strengthening
of internal security, and the adoption of measures to banish the
triple curse of hunger, ignorance and disease from the land.

None of these considerations, however, prevailed with the
linguistic irredentists. The Congress had agreed to give primacy
to language in the formation of states. Their hands were further
strengthened by the Prime Minister’s statement in the Constituent
Assembly on November 27, 1947, that the principle underlying
the demand for linguistic provinces had been accepted by the
Government. Later, it was officially stated that Andhra would be
mentioned as a separate unit in the new Constitution. The
Drafting Committee, however, thought that such a course of
action would not fully meet the requirements of the prevailing
situation and accordingly suggested that a Commission should
be appointed to make recommendations not only concerning
Andhra but other linguistic regions as well. Following this
suggestion, a Commission was appointed by the President of
the Constituent Assembly on June 17, 1948, consisting of S. K.
Dar, a retired judge of the Allahabad High Court, (Chairman),
Pannalal, a retired member of the Indian Civil Service, and
Jagat Narain Lai, a member of the Constituent Assembly.

Munshi viewed the whole proceedings with distaste. Since
1946, he had been warning about the dangers of linguistic
intolerance which, he feared, would gravely undermine the
national unity. He recalled what the Prime Minister himself had
been saying: “It produced more conflict and trouble than any

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kind of peaceful solution to the problem”. Munshi missed no
opportunity of ventilating his views before the Linguistic
Provinces Commission, of which he was an Associate Member.
He submitted to it a detailed note which was later published in
book form under the title Linguistic Provinces and Future of
Bombay . Better known as the Dar Commission, the expert
body examined the issue with complete detachment and
with the larger and lasting interests of the country at heart.
It did not regard the demand for linguistic states as wholly
sterile. In states having a great measure of linguistic
homogeneity, it would be possible to impart education to the
bulk of its student population in its own mother tongue and to
conduct the official correspondence and the deliberations of the
legislature in the language of the people. These were certainly
great assets, but there were other considerations which
outweighed such advantages.

The Commission pointed out that the weakness of the
demand lay in the fact that it involved “the recognition of the
principle of government of a province by a linguistic group,
which is basically wrong”. Strongly warning against giving
primacy to the linguistic principle, it said : “Indian nationalism is
deeply wedded to its regional languages; Indian patriotism is
aggressively attached to its provincial frontiers. If India is to
survive, Indian nationalism and patriotism will have to sacrifice
some of its cherished sentiments in the larger interests of the
country”. Urging that there should be a strong Centre with
“over-riding powers”, the investigating body recommended
thus: “In any rational and scientific planning that may take place
in regard to the provinces of India in the future, homogeneity of
language alone cannot be decisive or even an important factor.

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K. M. Munshi

Administrative convenience, history, geography, economy, culture,
and many other matters will have to be given weight”.* It held
that the forces of nationalism in the country were still feeble and
considered it most unwise to undertake the reorganisation of the
provinces at that time.

These were the warnings and recommendations of
a high-power Commission and the path of wisdom lay in
deferring to them without demur. Dr. Ambedkar, who piloted
the Constitution Bill in the Constituent Assembly, was equally
categorical in declaring himself against the linguistic principle.
Urging that there should be strong links between the principal
government and its constituent units, he said that linguistic
provinces would “result in creating as many nations as there are
groups, with pride in their race, language and literature. The
Central Legislature will be a League of Nations and the Central
Executive may become a meeting of separate and solidified
nations filled with the consciousness of their being separate in
culture and therefore in interests”. Other voices were also raised
against regional and linguistic chauvinism. With his characteristic
bluntness, Sarder Patel characterised the language enthusiasts
as the “assassins of nationalism”. Pandit Gobind Ballabh Pant
wanted the idea of linguistic states to be given a “decent burial”.

In December 1948, the Congress appointed a Committee
consisting of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi
Sitaramyya (JVP) to make recommendations on the question of
the states’ reorganisation. The Committee felt that the conditions
that had emerged in the country since independence made it to
view the problem of linguistic provinces “in a new light”. It
would prefer the reorganisation question to be postponed by a

*Tlie Framing of India's Constitution : Select Documents, Volume IV,
The Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1966, pp. 475-76.

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241

few years “so that we might concentrate during this period on
other matters of vital importance and not allow ourselves to be
distracted by this question.” The three leaders, however,
weakened their own argument by adding that they would submit
to “public sentiment” in favour of forming linguistic provinces if
it was “insistent and overwhelming”. Their report was endorsed
by the Congress executive in April 1949. If the ruling party
really thought that public opinion was strongly in favour of a
change, it should have undertaken it systematically and without
any undue loss of time. The whole question of reorganisation
arose out of the Andhra issue. A Telugu-speaking state was
created only in October 1953, that is, more than four and a half
years after its formation was recommended by the JVP
Committee. It was hustled into existence following the death by
fasting of Potti Sriramulu, on the issue. Commenting on the
ruling party’s failure to stand firm, Munshi said: “It talked
wisdom and acted unwisely”.

By now emotion and sentiment had virtually dethroned
reason and understanding. The Government found it impossible
to resist the demand for a similar dispensation in other linguistic
areas. The Prime Minister's announcement of December 22,
1953, appointing the States Reorganisation Commission, could
justifiably be traced to the compulsion of events. The Commission
consisted of S. Fazl Ali, a retired High Court Judge, (Chairman),
and two eminent members, namely, Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzm
and Sardar K. M. Pannikkar. Like the Dar Commission, it
made a thorough study of the pros and cons of forming new
states on linguistic lines and like it came to the conclusion that
in the wider interests of the country no such course of action
should be considered. The Commission declared: “Experience
has everywhere shown that States based on language are
intolerant, aggressive and expansionist in character. Already a
sense of irredentism is noticeable in the existing unilingual States

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K. M. Munshi

of India, which claim neighbouring territories on the basis of
language statistics”. The expert body warned that surrender to
regional and linguistic patriotism would give rise to the
dangerous “homeland” doctrine.

It conceded that after the integration of princely India with
the rest of the country, it became necessary to redraw the
administrative map, but it was imperative that weightage should
not be given to language in any such undertaking. Para 152
represents the quintessence of the Report and is reproduced
here in its entirety on account of its significance: “It has to be
remembered that linguistic and other group loyalties have deep
roots in the soil and history of India. The culture-based
regionalism, centring round the idea of linguistic homogeneity,
represents to the average Indian values easily intelligible to him.
Indian nationalism, on the other hand, has still to develop into
a positive concept. It must acquire a deeper content before it
becomes ideologically adequate to withstand the gravitational
pull of traditional narrower loyalties. In these circumstances,
further emphasis on narrow loyalties by equating linguistic
regions with political and administrative frontiers, must diminish
the broader sense of the unity of the country”.* The Commission’s
apprehension that any over-emphasis on language would
stimulate the disruptive “homeland” doctrine came true. After
the reorganisation of states, border disputes assumed dangerous
proportions, calling for the appointment of another Commission
to recommend their resolution. The one-man Mehr Chand
Mahajan Commission on the boundary disputes between
Maharashtra, Mysore (now Karnataka) and Kerala had the
disconcerting experience of being told that emigration of

* Report of the States Reorganisation Commission, 1955, p. 43.

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243

linguistic minorities from their hearths and homes provided the
best means for the formation of unilingual states *

The future of Bombay city presented an almost intractable
problem for the Fazl Ali Commission. As a great commercial,
industrial and educational centre, it had come to be known as
the urbs prima in Indis. Many communities, including the
Europeans, the Parsis, the Gujaratis and the Maharashtrians,
had made their offerings at the altar of this great metropolis.
One section of the people felt strongly that the assignment of
Bombay to Maharashtra would deprive it of its cosmopolitan
character and thus bring about its decline. Influential men
banded themselves together in an attempt to preserve the
“glory” of the city at all costs. Suggestions were made for
making Bombay a “city State”, to be controlled directly by
New Delhi. It was, however, decided that it should be the
capital of a bilingual state, comprising the Marathi-speaking and
Gujarati-speaking people. Munshi was entirely in favour of such
an arrangement. Speaking in Bombay on August 26, 1956, he
pleaded for ensuring the success of the bilingual state. Since
linguistic homogeneity was considered as the basic criterion for
the states’ reorganisation, the experiment of a bilingual Bombay
province was bound to fail. The movement, spearheaded by the
Samyukta Maharashtra Parishad, for the inclusion of the city in
Maharashtra became irresistible. Riots in Gujarat, aimed at
securing a unilingual state, clinched the issue. Maharashtra, with
Bombay city as its capital, came into existance in May 1960 in
spite of the predilections of the Union Government.

Munshi was unhappy at the growing linguistic
intolerance and at the outbreak of violence over the

* Report of the Commission on Maharashtra-Mysor e-Kerala
Boundary Disputes, Volume 1, 1967 , p. 33.

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K. M. Munshi

inter-state border disputes. With extreme reluctance, he wrote
to Nehru on May 20, 1961, calling his attention to these
developments. “The root cause”, he wrote, “of the present
trouble in the country has been the inability of some of us, who
wanted the Indian nation to be united and strong, to foresee the
danger of linguism.” In most states, men with a countrywide
outlook were looked down upon as reactionaries. Even
Gujarat”, he complained, “is no exception” He feared that
there would be “linguistic Balkani station of the country if
“something bold and effective” was not done. He told the
Prime Minister that he was eminently suited to stem the rot. He
wrote: “History has placed you, of all your contemporaries in
the country, a dosition when your alons can take bold and
detisive action to implement a policy of integration”. Munshi
took the opportunity of discussing the problem personally with
Nehru when they met on July 2. The Prime Minister agreed
that the situation called for “serious consideration”. He said that
he would first convene a conference of the Chief Ministers of
states, then meet political party leaders and finally, confer with
independent persons, including the educationists. A beginning
was made in that direction in the last week of September and
on the first of October, but nothing came out of it. Munshi ’s
earlier contacts with distinguished leaders such as Acharya
Vinoba Bhave, C. Rajagopalchari, Jaya Prakash Narayan,
Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzru, Dr. Syed Mahmud and
Dr. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar did not also yield any
tangible results*.

Munshi became disconsolate because the splitting of the
States went on even after Nehru’s death in 1964. He
considered it midsummer madness to divide the Punjab even

* Pilgrimage to Freedom by K. M. Munshi, Volume 1, pp. 235, 240.

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245

after it had suffered a serious amputation in 1947. The Sikhs,
who spearheaded the demand for a Punjabi Saba, formed only
35 per cent of the State’s population. The States Reorganisation
Commission, which examined the question in depth, declared
that the demarcation between the type of Hindi and the Punjabi
spoken in the State was “more theoretical than real”. A team of
jurists, consisting of S. R. Das, retired Chief Justice of India,
M. C. Chagla, retired Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court,
and Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar, a distinguished lawyer and
former Dewan of Travancore, who studied the Sikh demand,
found no substance in it. But the Akalis insisted that there should
be a second partition of Punjab. This was done following the
recommendations of the Punjab Boundary Commission in
1966. The future of Chandigarh, now the joint capital
of Punjab and Haryana, and of the prosperous areas of Abohar
and Fazilka has become a running sore between the two states.
Writing in Swarajya in March 1970, C. Rajagopalachari said :
“Every major error leads to a chain of difficulties. The greatest
mistake after the attainment of Independence, a mistake that
threatens to undo all our worthy ambitions, was the reorganisation
of the States on the basis of language”. Munshi was in entire
agreement with this observation of India’s veteran leader.

16-473 M of I&B/ND/81.

XIV

Man of Letters

MUNSHI KNEW MANY LANGUAGES but he wrote
almost entirely in English and Gujarati. His English prose
had a remarkable resilience. His legal and political writings were
noteworthy for their simplicity and directness. They were
essentially utilitarian. His style took an entirely new turn when he
wrote on other subjects. There he could rise to supreme heights
of literary excellence. He could set off the most trifling common
places in the most superb ornaments of language. In his Gujarati
works, he was peerless among his contemporaries. Gujarati, his
mother tongue, nourished his mind and matter as the mother’s
breast milk builds up the body of a child. He could delve deep
into the recesses of his mind in search of new thoughts and
ideas and give expression to them in words of great power and
beauty. Munshi, as a front-rank lawyer and politician, was a
busy man and yet he was copious and multifarious. He was not
only copious but fast, as every fertile artist must be. It could be
said of him, as it was said of Shakespeare, that his hand and
mind went together.

The literary tradition of Gujarat dates back to the early
centuries of the Christian era and it was shared by Rajasthan
and Malwa till the seventeenth century. Sanskrit was the
dominant language till the region was ravaged by Alaud-din
Khalji’s armies in 1297 A.D. Poets and scholars retreated to
rural Gujarat and started enlarging and enriching the local
spoken dialect. The era of resistance that followed the Muslim

Man of Letters

247

invasion was marked by the creation of heroic poetry but it was
largely confined to bards supported by assertive and affluent
Kshatriya families. The Bhakti movement, led by Mirabai,
Surdas and Tulsidas, however, created a new awakening
throughout north India. Mirabai, who lived mostly in Chitor,
became the symbol of the new religious renaissance. She sang
in Western Rajasthani or Gaurjari and Marwadi. Her songs,
sung with deep religious fervour, make a valuable contribution
to the Gujarati, Rajasthani and Hindi literature. Narsi Mehta, the
Saint of Junagadh, was another shining light of the Bhakti
movement whose well-known devotional song “Vaishnava

Janato . ” became a part of Mahatma Gandhi’s daily

prayer. Great poets like Samalbhat, Premchand, Akho and
Dayaram, who lived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
broadbased the Gujarati literature by their writings. A good deal
of secular literature, including fiction was turned out during this
period. In the subsequent period, Gujarati, like the other Indian
languages, was overshadowed by English which made its
growth slow. The advent of Mahatma Gandhi and Munshi in the
second decade of this century, however, gave a new direction
to the language which, being liberated from the conventional
style, went closer to the common man.

Like his English, Mahatma Gandhi’s Gujarati was crisp,
simple and idiomatic and could be understood even by the most
unlettered person. Munshi’s prose had all these qualities. At the
same time, it could ri se to the summit of literary splendour. His
scholarship, his all -roundness and his mental restlessness
contributed to the most astonishing outflow of words. He
disdained to sit in the ivory tower, elaborating perfection at the
rate of one sentence to the hour. Words flowed from his pen in
torrents — limpid and powerful. While Mahatma Gandhi was
mostly concerned with his experiments with truth, his gifted
lieutenant occupied himself with the description of his fellow-

248

K. M. Munshi

men in all their naturalness. The fact is that Munshi was
endowed with a remarkable capacity for observation. Nothing
escaped his attention. What we normally regard as trivial
interested him. He harnessed both the “unconsidered trifle” and
the most mighty things to his art with such skill and intensity that
whatever he wrote acquired a certain distinctiveness denied to
other novelists and playwrights. Munshi was essentially a
story-teller and was not a pedantic moralist, always prone to
find fault with everything. He had a profound knowledge of the
human beings and portrayed their strong as well as weak points
with extreme fidelity and clarity. A fellow-feeling for humanity is
indeed the dominant note of his literary works which hold
attention because they depict a wide range of human experience.
Being essentially urban-based, he avoided depicting rural life.

In the literary world, Munshi had his exemplars, Indian and
European. Foremost among his Indian models was
Bankimchandra Chatteiji who stimulated his romantic imagination
“to go in search of new worlds”. He pays the highest tribute to
the great Bengali novelist. Chatteiji was the “founder of modem
novel, humour and in a sense the seer who saw modern
nationalism in India in its true shape and colour”. He claimed
that he humbly carried forward the great heritage which
Bankimchandra left by capturing the spirit in the portrayal of
men and women and the vision of Mother India. Dayanand
Saras wati, the founder of Ary a Samaj, was not a literary figure,
but he was a lion of a man who upheld the timelessness and the
sanctity of the Vedas and sought to rekindle Indian pride in the
great Aryan culture. Originally known as Mulshankar, the
Swami hailed from Morvi in Gujarat. Munshi wrote about
him: “He restored in me the pride of ancient race and undying
culture”. Sri Aurobindo, who always held pride of place in his
heart, remained the lodestar of his life. Both he and the Swami
greatly influenced Munshi’s ideas and ideals. Mahatma Gandhi

Man of Letters

249

was, of couse, his path-finder in politics and in many other
domains of human activity.

From his college days Munshi had been a diligent student
of European literature. Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Walter
Scott, Goethe, Shelly, Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells had
become his literary godfathers. At that time he had no
premonition of becoming a writer either in English or in Gujarati.
But the rich literary fare that nourished his mind and widened his
intellectual horizon helped him to shed all outmoded ideas and
to emerge as an ardent patriot. The writings of contemporary
English writers thrilled him.

Munshi, who went to Bombay in June 1907 as a “puny,
penniless, friendless new-comer” to make a career at the Bar,
never thought at the time or for some years later that he would
eventually emerge as a luminous star in the firma ment of Gujarati
literature. In his earlier years, he had made no regular study of that
language and his busy life gave him no opportunity to make good
this deficiency. But by then he had, without his knowing it,
become a mental giant in whom a terrifying ability lay hidden.
Responding to a compelling urge to write, even when he was
preparing for the Advocate’s examination, he produced a story
called Mari Kamala which was published in a Gujarati journal
called Stribodh in 1912. He wrote it under the pen-name of
Ghanashyam Vyas in order to test whether he could write well in
that language. Leading literary critics applauded his maiden effort
and encouraged him to persevere with his labours in the cause of
Gujarati literature. In the following year, he wrote, with less
diffidence but without discarding his literary veil, a social novel
entitled Ver-ni-Vasulat (Revenge Accomplished). It was serialised
in the weekly Gujarati and brought him, a struggling lawyer, the
much needed remuneration of twenty rupees a month.

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K. M. Munshi

The novel became an instant success. Tanman, the heroine,
at once became the darling of young and old, while young men
sighed to have a maiden of that description as a wife, old men
debated among themselves how different their lives would have
been had they been fortunate to have such a mate when in the full
tide of their manhood. Munshi could conjure up such an attractive
character because he had developed an obsessional yearning for
a woman like that. In later years, he wrote thus : “I will tell you
of a little maiden, Tanman, who sprang from the imagination of a
young lawyer; she was the dreambride of a college student; for
years he had created her out of longing, tears and despair”. In his
novels and plays, Munshi painted the portraits of women, not just
as the female of the human species, but as man’s equal partner.
His resplendent vision of his motherland guarded him against
committing the mistake of looking down upon woman as a weak
and inferior creature.

He wrote “I created the modern woman with the right to
love as she wills and live her own life; the man who is prepared
to live the life that he is bom to, unabashed and triumphant; the
joys of man and woman, the joys of the flesh of the united minds
and the linked wills; the joy of life as it is lived — richly,
spontaneously and sinlessly; the vivid worship of the Mother in
which our old time lore of Bharat, our collective urge for social
synthesis and our dominant political consciousness were fused
and transformed into the triumphant nationalism of the day; and
above all, the search and portrayal of beauty, rising above and
beyond prudery, convention, tradition and the transient fashions
of generations”.* Munshi defended love by classifying it as one
of the fundamental passions of life. It sustained and transfigured

* Munshi: Self-sculptor by Jayana Seth, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1979,
quoted on p. 3.

Man of Letters

251

life and moulded destiny. The purpose of existence would find its
fulfilment in the consummation of love.

Munshi did not venture to shed his anonymity as a writer
even after he had gained a firm foothold in the kingdom of
Gujarati letters. In 1916, he wrote Patan-ni-Prabhuta
(Greatness of Patan), a historical novel, the first of a great
trilogy, portraying the greatness of Gujarat and its rulers,
including Siddaraja Jayasimha, an outstanding historical figure
whom Munshi was never tired of eulogising. The other two
novels of his genre were Gujarat-no-Nath (The Lord of
Gujarat), 1917, and Rajadhiraj (The King of Kings), 1922.
The first novel took Gujarat by storm, but it brought no
happiness to its still disguised author. The delineation of a Jain
monk’s shady doings in the story infuriated some of the touchy
members of that community who clamoured to have him tried
in a court of law. Munshi, whose main concern at the time was
to get on with his career as a budding lawyer, was in no position
to face the unexpected storm. He ran to his benefactor,
Jamietram, the influential solicitor, and told him all about his brief
career as a fiction- writer in Gujarati. The older man too had
been bewitched by Tanman in the novel, Ver-ni-Vasulat. Far
from thundering at the shivering young man, he congratulated
him on his great performance. He assured Munshi that he would
take the responsibility of calming the outraged feelings
of the Jains.

Munshi had a highly developed historical sense which
greatly contributed to the quickening of his imaginative sensibility.
He admired Scott’s Waverley novels, which revived the old
romance in which, by means of a remarkable ingenuity of form,
the adventures of a typical hero of fiction were cast in a
historical setting and set about with portraits of real personages.
“Scott’s best work”, says a British writer, “his novels of Scottish

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K. M. Munshi

character, catch more than half their excellence from the
richness of colour and proportion which the portraiture of the
living people acquires when it is aided by historical knowledge
and imagination”. Munshi revolutionised Gujarati fiction by using
a similar technique in his historical novels. He was a resourceful
romanticist who saw to it that the doings of his historical figures
had contemporary relevance. “The dead pages of Gujarat’s
history”, writes Dr. Jayana Seth, “became a real experience for
the people through Munshi’s novels. The trilogy, providing
heroic models, strongly appealed to the contemporary Gujaratis.
Some of the characters in the novels, says Narasimharao, which
were mere names before, have now found a “fond and
permanent place in popular imagination”.*

Munshi was no longer under the necessity of writing under
a concealed name. He had now joined the select band of
distinguished writers in his mother tongue. As far back as 1921,
Krishnalal M. Jhaveri wrote about the talented newcomer thus
in his Further Milestones of Gujarati Literature : “Recently a
novelist, worthy of the first rank among the writers of that class,
suddenly blossomed out. Till he began in 1911 with some short
stories and published them with great hesitation, concealing his
own identity under the significant nom-de -plume, Ghanashyam,
no one suspected that he had latent powers. In the opinion of
many, Kanaiyalal’s style is always suited to the occasion. There
may be in his writings a recklessness in the spelling of words;
there might be an unconscious echo of English phrases
translated into Gujarati, but on the whole, the style is virile,
vigorous, cultured and chaste”.

Munshi fully deserved this high tribute from a veteran
scholar. In the previous year, 1920, he had published another

* Op. cit. p. 34, Narasimharao was a Gujarati literary critic.

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253

historical novel, Prithvi Vallabh (The Darling of the World),
which transported him to the pinnacle of popularity. It is a
prose-poem which has been translated into Hindi, Marathi,
Kannada and Bengali, besides being staged and screened.
The novel is derived from the fragments of an ancient
versified historical romance in Gujarati. Munja, the ruler
of the Paramara Empire, whom Munshi dignifies with the title of
Prithvi Vallabh, falls in love with the widowed sister of King
Tailapa of Telangana, who takes him to his capital as his
captive. Mrinaldevi is a mettlesome and self-willed woman who
is senior in age to the royal prisoner. She goes to him
determined to subdue him to her imperious will, but finds that
his personality and matchless equanimity of temper even in his
degraded condition are overwhelming. His composure and
fortitude even amidst incredible suffering, astonish her, forcing
her to fall at his feet. His tribulations come to an end when the
King orders his body to be trampled under an elephants’ foot.
Munshi also got some brickbats for his superb creation.
Mahatma Gandhi did not like it. Munshi writes: “To Gandhiji,
not familiar with what is art for art’s sake,” this book was
suggested as a specimen of the author’s creative writing. He
read it and severely criticised Munshi

Munshi wrote not only in praise of Gujarat’s greatness and
glory but also about its downfall. Two novels, Jay Somnath
(Hail Somnath) and Bhagna Paduka (The Broken Sandals)
belong to the later category. Both were written when he had
reached the peak of his literary renown, the first in 1940 and the
second in 1948. The technique of these later works is different
while the style is more mellowed and resilient. It is the story of
the sack of the great Temple of Somnath by Mahmud of Ghazni
in January 1025 A.D. The immense but ill-defended wealth of
Indian temples drew Mahmud to India as many as seventeen

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K. M. Munshi

times, which proved the fatal weakness of the country’s
defences. Munshi has, however, painted a shining picture
of the heroic defence of the temple by the King of Gujarat,
his dependent aristocracy and his soldiers. He also calls
our attention to the spiritual eminence of Ganga-sarvagna the
high priest, and to the religious ecstasy of Chaula, the temple
dancer. He praises Sultan Mahmud’s tenacity of purpose and
his will to succeed.

Bhagna Paduka rounds off Munshi ’s great novels on
Chalukyan Gujarat. In 1297 A.D., Ala-ud-din Khalji, the man
who “shed more innocent blood than ever Pharaoh was guilty
of”, overran Gujarat and destroyed its independent sovereignty.
His favourite deputy, Malik Naib Kafur, a converted eunuch,
was directed to humble Hindu manhood in the South. Munshi
describes the Sultan’s court in the novel “in light but effective
vignettes” in which the armed might of the invader is contrasted
with “the decadence of Chalukyan Gujarat”*. To help the
reader to overcome the heaviness of his heart over the fallen
eminence of the Gujarat rulers, the author weaves a romance
between the son of the high priest of a king and a dancing girl.
The young man is known as Bada Maharaj and his beloved is
called Anangana. Hindu treachery, the futile heroism
of the defenders of the shrines and homes of Gujarat, the mass
immolation of women and the destruction and
desolation that followed Muslim invasion are described with a
realism equal to that of the account of the man on the spot.

B hag aw an Kautilya (Lord Kautilya), an earlier
historical novel, was written in 1923. Here the author has
attempted to present a refreshingly new portrait of Kautilya,

* Munshi:His Art and Work'.Man of Letter, Volume III,
pp. 90, 91.

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255

the celebrated minister of Chandragupta Maurya and author of
Arthasastra, the well-known treatise on state-craft.
He rejects the charge that the great statesman was guilty of
Machiavellianism. Kautilya's sole object was to end the
unpopular rule of the Nandas and to install Chandragupta, his
friend, on the imperial throne. A reviewer of the novel writes:
“Mr. Munshi is not only a careful student of the human mind and
its motives but is also an artistic lover of nature. His description
of Naimisharanya, coupled with that of the ashram of Rishi

Bhadraksha, is as picturesque as it is beautiful . He

(Chanakya) saw that mere asceticism without culture was
useless, mere knowledge without self-control a poor exhibition.
Both culture and control were linked together by the power of
the concentrate thought of the seer”.

Munshi wrote in all branches of literature except poetry.
His contribution to fiction by drawing abundantly from the
historical past was widely recognised. The Dictionary of
Oriental Literatures says: “The second structure was developed
by K. M. Munshi, who transformed the facts of India’s past into
a movement of its basic history. Thus, his, Patan-ni-Prabhuta
(Greatness of Patan) truly begins the Gujarati historical novel”.
Munshi had a passionate attachment to India’s past and
harnessed his great gifts as a story-teller to stimulate the
nationalism of his contemporaries by calling attention to its
glorious aspects. He used this medium with superb skill in his
four- act play, Dhruvaswaminidevi published in 1929.

The play deals with the Gupta period, justly described as
India’s Augustan Age. Samudragupta (335-376 A.D.), who
governed the biggest empire since the days of Asoka,
administered his charge for more than forty years with such
foresight and imagination that he has rightly been acclaimed as
a model monarch, th tflos re gum, and as one of the finest men

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that ever adorned the Indian throne. The play, however, deals
with the incompetent King Ramagupta, his great Queen,
Dhruvadevi, and his brother, Chandragupta. The woman is
noble, urbane and patriotic and abhors the levity and pusillanimity
of her husband. His weakness encourages the enemy of the
Empire, Mahakshatrap Rudraman, to invade his realm.
Dhruvadevi and Chandragupta are drawn towards each other
irresistibly and Ramagupta is done away with when he
discovers this. The younger man fights valiantly against the
invading enemy and saves the Empire from dissolution. Sage
Yajnavalkya permits him to marry the lady. Commenting on this
drama, Dr. Jayana Seth says that it “reveals Munshi’s most
positive and least negative traits: action and conflict, progenitors
of dramatic tension, hold the attention of the audience and the
readers alike”.

In depicting the social life of his people, Munshi showed
the same perception that marked his historical novels. He had
proved his creative abilities in his first social novel, Verni-
Vasulat which, as we saw earlier, achieved immediate popularity.
His novel, Konk Vano? (Whose Fault?), published in 1915, is
an indignant protest against such evils as forced widowhood,
early marriage of girls, and caste cruelties. He exposes man’s
inhumanity to man in the Hindu society by unfolding the sad
story of Mani, a child widow. Svapna drishta (The visionary),
1924, is a record of his own reactions to the political
happenings in India since the beginning of the first decade of this
century. He gives himself the name of Sudarshan who plays the
role of a hero in the novel. Stirring popular movements such as
the campaign against Lord Curzon’s arbitrary partition of
Bengal in 1905 and the countrywide boycott of foreign goods
are described with consummate skill and vividness. Sneha
Sambhrarna (Confusion of Love), written in 1931, a part of
which was dramatised as Pidagrast Professor reveals the

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author in a “rollicking, boisterous mood”. It is the story of an
amorous professor and a boastful man whose respective wives
are disgusted with the behaviour of their husbands. Khange
Karbhari is another humorous satire. In 1957-58, Munshi
published a three volume novel called Tapasvini (The Lady
Sage) which is a detailed description of the social and political
evolution of Gujarat since the Great Revolt of 1857.

Munshi was a prolific writer. He wrote thirteen plays, five
of which were mythological, depicting the greatness of the
Aryan culture. In 1953, he wrote a fantasy Vah re Men Vah
(Kudos to Me). It is indeed impossible to make even a brief
reference to everything he wrote. His literary output included
historical biography, his travels abroad, literary criticism, and
scholarly essays on a wide variety of subjects. His varied
writings in Gujarati have been listed into fifty-six items. Before
India’s independence, he wrote thirteen novels, fourteen dramas
and twenty short stories. In the post-independence period,
covering twenty-four years till his deat in 1971, he published
three novels, one play and a fantasy. Much of his production in
the second period was non-fictional and related to biography,
autobiography, polit cs, history and culture.

Both in volume and value, Munshi’s contribution to the
Gujarati literature is massive and towering. Apart from the fact
that his writings are marked by a genuine fluency in style and
fancy, they defy the categories. Munshi was indeed a remarkable
mixture of unquenchable romantic and a man-on-the-spot
realist. He was a patriot with a deep and abiding love for the
immemorial pieties and culture of his motherland. At the same
time, he abhorred the undesirable accretions to them and
condemned them with his trenchant pen. Effectiveness was the
Alpha and Omega of his style. He was a writer who dealt in first
principles, and dealers in first principles cannot be taken for

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granted. He said what he thought and was congenitally
incapable of saying anything else. Perhaps, next only to
Mahatma Gandhi, he created in Gujarat a new consciousness
which he called Asmita. The Gujaratis, no matter to which
station in life they belonged, were not slow in taking him to their
heart. He was the most popular and esteemed writer in their
language and toward over his contemporaries like a Titan. He
has earned a deathless name in the Gujarati literature. He
laboured hard in stimulating the study of Gujarati literature and
played a prominent part in the establishment of the Gujarati
Sahitya Parishad, of which he remained President for many
years. He was also an inspirer and the mainstay of other
institutions with similar objectives. In 1922, when the Gujarati
Literary Society was founded, he started an illustrated monthly
called Gujarat with himself as its Joint Editor. His services to
the Gujarati language and literature are truly inestimable.

Munshi began his career as a writer in English with
extreme diffidence. Having had his university education in a
mofussil college, he at first wondered whether the “foreign
tongue’' would ever become amenable to him. He was,
however, not alone in entertaining such fears. Even Mahatma
Gandhi who, according to H. A. L. Fisher, the eminent historian
of Europe, had “a distinguished command of the English
language”, complained that it was no pleasure for him to write
in that language. The Rt. Hon. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri was hailed
as an outstanding orator in English in the British Empire, but he
too was sometimes assailed by the unfounded fear of inadequacy.
Munshi had no reason at all to be defeatist on this issue. He had
read English authors deeply and extensively and it was no
difficult task for a man of his intelligence and quick perception
to use the language as an effective vehicle for his thoughts.
Necessity drove away all his doubts and hesitations and made
him an accomplished speaker both in the law-courts and on the

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259

platform. He was also a man with a message to convey about
the greatness of his country’s heritage. How could he reach a
national and international audience if not through the medium of
English? Perhaps, he could not master the subtleties of the
language as well as he could in his own mother tongue, but his
command over it was impressive and much more than sufficient
for all practical purposes.

Munshi readily acknowledged India’s indebtedness to
foreign scholarship for proclaiming the greatness of her civilization
to the world. But he wanted both Indians and foreigners to see
her greatness through Indian eyes. Most of the books on Indian
history failed to impress him. He undertook the stupendous task
of getting it written by a band of seasoned Indian historians and
scholars. The outcome is The History and Culture of the
Indian People in eleven volumes, each volume running into
many hundreds of pages. In his Foreword to the first volume,
dealing with the Vedic period, he wrote : “In the course of my
studies I had long felt the inadequacy of our so-called Indian
histories. For many years, therefore, I was planning an
elaborate history of India in order not only that India’s past
might be described by her sons, but also that the world might
catch a glimpse of her soul as Indians see it”. It is a magnificent
effort begun in 1951 and completed in 1969 and covers the
country’s history from the earliest known period till the exit of
the British from its soil in August 1947. The burden was borne
by Dr. R. C. Majumdar, the doyen of Indian historians, as
General Editor, who was assisted by a team of talented writers.
Commenting on the first volume, The Vedic Age, The Times
Literary Supplement, London, says: “This history unlike its
predecessors is first and foremost a history of India and of her
people rather than a history of those who have from time to time
invaded her . The standard, in a word, is very high.”

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K. M. Munshi

Munshi was keen that the greatness of Gujarat must also
be made known to the wider world. In 1935, he published
Gujarata and its Literature, which presented to the English-
reading public an authentic and authoritative history of Gujarati
literature from the earliest times. Many of its chapters were
originally intended to be delivered as extension lectures under
the auspices of the Post-graduate Studies, Department of
Calcutta University, but this plan did not materialise as Munshi
was caught in the vortex of the civil disobedience movement.
The twenty-one-chapter volume, acclaimed as “the best of its
kind both in its attempt and achievement”, carries the Foreword
of Mahatma Gandhi. Professor A. B. Keith, who wrote so
much about India’s ancient civilization and the constitutional
reforms introduced by the British in this country, was all praise
for Munshi’s magnificent performance. He wrote: “It is not
merely pioneer work, but the field is vast and the languages
used range from Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha to
the old and modern Gujarati, demanding an emdition remarkable
in one who has given so much time to public service and who
himself is an outstanding author, whose creative art (in the
words of Dr. Taraporevala) has brought life and beauty to
Gujarati fiction and drama and whose philosophy of life has
given to Gujarata both joy and strength”.

Mulraj Solanki was among Munshi’s idolised historical
figures. The millennial celebrations of the ruler’s assumption of
the sovereignty of Anahilwad Patan were welcomed by him to
plan the publication of a multi-volume work on the greatness of
Gujarat. The task was entrusted by the Gujarat Sahitya
Parishad to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, of which he was the
founder. The original project of bringing out four volumes never
materialised. As General Editor, Munshi found that he had to
bear almost the entire burden of the undertaking. The volume,
The Imperial Gurjaras, was entirely written by him. Since

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261

other scholars did not evince much interest in the scheme, it fell
to Munshi to revise it thoroughly. This resulted in the publication
of The Glory That Was Gurjar Desha, the first volume of
which was brought out in 1943 and the second in the following
year. Both were revised in 1954. Commenting on these volumes
and on Munshi ’s earlier book on Gujarati literature, Dr. K. R.
Srinivasa Iyengar, former Head of the Department of English,
Andhra University, says : tkA great deal of industry, scholarship
and sensitive interpretation has gone into these impressive
cultural histories, and his lucid exposition and clarity of
expression make the perusal of these books both a pleasure
and an instruction”. Munshi, who had decided that the
reconstruction of the Somnath shrine should become an integral
part of post-independence cultural activity and had the satisfaction
of realising his long-cherished dream, wrote a masterly book on
the subject in 1951 and called it Somnath, the Shrine Eternal
Enough has already been written on this subject in the earlier
pages of this book. Munshi’ s deep commitment to Indian
culture in its varied aspects is exemplified in his book, The Saga
of Indian Sculpture, which presents a vivid picture of the
country’s achievements in the realm of plastic arts.

Munshi wrote a good deal on political topics. He recorded
his allegiance to Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership in two books I
Follow the Mahatma and Gandhi, the Master, the former
written in 1940 and the latter in 1948, the year of the
Mahatma’s martyrdom. The Muslim League’s campaign for
India’s partition, which gathered momentum as the Second
World War progressed, caused him much anguish, out of which
arose in 1 942 the book, Akhand Hindustan. Here he made a
well reasoned and impassioned plea for not attempting the
subversion of his dearly-loved motherland’s territorial integrity.
The End of an Era, published in 1957, is a record of the
author’s experience in Hyderabad soon alter national

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independence as India’s representative there. The intransigent
attitude of the Nizam to the integration of the State with the rest
of India and the Razakar violence, to which a detailed reference
has been made in an earlier chapter, are fully brought out in this
volume. Munshi’s appraisal of British rule was fair and realistic.
He heartily applauded its positive achievements, especially its
gift of the rule of law to the Indian people, but he was an
unsparing critic of its economic policy which grievously
improverished the country by draing off its resources. He
published in 1946 his views on this subject in his book, The
Ruin that Britain Wrought.

Age never wearied this remarkable man, to whom inaction
was worse than death. In the post-independence period, his
pen remained as busy as before. He wrote much on both
political and non-political topics. Many of his speeches and
writing as Minister and Governor have been brought together
and published in book form. Sparks from a Governor's Anvil,
1956 , in two volumes is a noteworthy example of this species
of his writings. Munshi was also an accomplished journalist,
who edited for about a decade the weekly journal, The Social
Welfare and its successor, The New Democrat. His journalistic
activity had begun long before India’s liberation. He stimulated
deeper interest in the Bhavan ’s Journal, a fortnightly organ of
the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, through his feature, “Kulapati’s
Letters”, which was eagerly read. There the author discussed a
wide variety of subjects in a homely style which at once brought
his numerous readers closer to him. The rapport between him
and them was perfect.

He also laid the English reading public under a deep debt
of gratitude by starting the “Bhavan’s Book University” under
the general editorship of himself and N. Chandrasekhara Aiyer,
and after him, R. R. Diwakar. In his Preface to the series on

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263

October 3, 1951, Munshi explained that it had been started to
provide “higher education” to the reading public by laying
emphasis on such “literature as revealed the deeper impulsions
of India”. For a considerable time, the books were sold at an
incredibly low price of Rs. 1.75 per copy so that an increasing
number of people could gain ready access to a truly enlightening
literature. (The price was later raised to Rs. 2.50 which was
certainly not much for a copy of over two hundred pages).
Munshi held that “through such books alone the harmonies
underlying true culture”, would “one day reconcile the disorders
of modern life”. The series is undoubtedly a landmark in the
history of Indian publishing. His last major contribution to the
Indian political literature consists of two volumes entitled
Pilgrimage to Freedom, embodying the Indian constitutional
documents from 1902 to 1950. The first volume is in the nature
of an introduction to these documents. Known as “Munshi
Papers”, the volumes are widely consulted by students of Indian
constitutional affairs.

It is difficult to assess the literary achievements of
Munshi within the brief compass of a chapter. He wrote so
much and on such a bewildering variety of subjects that even a
passing reference to each of his works would demand
considerable space. He was an Olympian in the kingdom of
Gujarati letters. He had drunk deep from the founts of Western
literature and used his vast knowledge to bring a certain
newness and freshness to bear on his Gujarati writings. He
explored new literary areas, as exemplified by his historical
romances, and adopted new techniques of expression that
helped to shorten the distance between the cultivated reader
and his uninstructed counterpart. He has won a secure place in
Gujarati literature. Some of his writings in English have also an
imperishable quality. His books on Gujarat are seminal and are,

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K. M. Munshi

therefore, durable. Munshi was a man with many irons in the fire
and yet he could effortlessly win immortality in literature.
Overflowing with energy, he never regarded either law or
politics as a jealous mistress.

The Bhavan

MUNSHI WAS A DREAMER but he had the wisdom
and the ability to translate his dreams into deeds. He was
a practical idealist par excellence. His devotion to India’s
ancient civilization was absolute. It was based on deep study
and reflection and on the conviction of the relevance of the past
to the present. He shared the belief that one had to take a peep
into the past in order to draw inspiration for the present and to
make plans for the future. Like all discerning persons, he saw
a living reality in India’s past. Ancient Indians were men of
gigantic stature. By their achievements they took their motherland
ahead of other countries. Language and literature, art and
architecture, science, including metallurgy and medicine, were
developed to their highest pitch of excellence. India’s offerings
to human knowledge were indeed many, the most precious and
conspicuous one among them being the invention of the decimal
system. The greatest Indian astronomer and mathematician,
Aryabhata, whose name has now become familiar to millions of
our countrymen by naming a space research satellite after him,
discussed with profound understanding such abstruse subjects
as quadratic equations, besides announcing the roundness of the
earth and its diurnal revolution on its axis in daring anticipation
of Renaissance science.

Great progress was also made in the science of medicine
and, as far back as the sixth century B. C., Hindu physicians

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K. M. Munshi

were able to describe a large number of delicate parts of the
anatomy hidden from the eye with amazing clarity and
confidence. “The ancient Hindus”, says an authority, “performed
almost every major operation except ligation of the arteries”.
The surgeons knew the use of one hundred and twenty-one
surgical instmments. Both Sushruta and Charaka have recorded
that there were medicines to induce insensibility to pain. Will
Durant quotes an authority as saying that in 927 A. D. two
surgeons trepanned the skull of a king and made him insensitive
to the operation by administering a drug called samohini. In
many other departments of human activity, Indians had forged
ahead of the rest of mankind. We cannot ignore these facts
because his country’s ancient civilization differs from those of
Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece in the sense that its traditions
have been preserved without a break down to the present day.
The masses of Egypt and Iraq had no knowledge of the
achievements of their ancestors until the spade of the
archaeologist unearthed their splendour. The common man in
Greece had also little knowledge of the glory of Periclean
Athens. It has never been so with India where the earliest
European visitors were astonished to find a culture that was not
only continuous but fully conscious of its antiquity. Indeed, India
and China are the only two countries in the world which have
the oldest continuous cultural traditions.

Munshi was, therefore, anxious to harness this great
heritage to the galvanization of his countrymen. He made a
pointed reference to the relevance of the past to the present
while delivering his inaugural address at the bi-decennial
celebration of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on February 10,
1957. “We must not”, he said, “forget even for a moment that
the roots of Indian vitality are imbedded in its cultural and
spiritual heritage. Its life may appear to change from generation
to generation; but its basic continuity persists through a healthy

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267

adjustment between necessary development and persistent
continuity”. He did not spurn material advance as sterile. On the
contrary, he insisted that Indians must move with the times and
should in fact try to be one lap ahead of others in science and
technology. But there was “no reason why we should be untme
to the heritage of Vyas, Valmiki and Kalidas, or forget the
message of the Bhagavad Gita *

Since 1923, Munshi had been seriously thinking of giving
an institutional foundation to his ideas and ideals. The times
were, however, not propitious for any such undertaking. He
was an active participant in Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience
movement and was often removed from the scene of his
activities. Such an ambitious project needed a long period of
peace and tranquillity as well as money. The last-named
requirement did not, however, worry him too much. He was not
a moneyed man himself and was certainly in no position to
finance his project, but he fully shared the Gladstonian belief
that worthy causes need not suffer for want of money. He was
never in doubt about what he called the “noble spontaneity” of
the affluent classes in supporting his cause. Congress acceptance
of the responsibilities of Government in 1937 promised a
reasonably long break from the convulsive Gandhian challenges
to authority. As a member of the Congress Government in
Bombay, Munshi hoped to do substantial public work in
addition to his ministerial responsibilities.

His long-cherished aim of founding a cultural institution
became a reality with the establishment of the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan on November 7, 1938. Speaking on the occasion, he

* Sparks from a Governor’s Anvil by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Volume I,
pp. 559-61.

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K. M. Munshi

said: “For many years, it has been the dream of the Sahitya
Sansad to crystallise its work by creating a centre in which the
ancient learning and modem intellectual aspirations of this land
could combine to create a new literature, a new history and a
new culture. The Bhavan will be a new association which will
organise active centres where ancient Aryan learning can be
studied and where modem Indian culture will be provided with
a historical background”. Three persons came together and
resolved to nurse the infant institution till it grew into an
outstanding symbol of the intellectual, literary, educational,
ethical, spiritual and cultural life of India. They were the founder
himself, Mrs. Lilavati Munshi and Sir Harsidbhai Divatia. From
the first, Mrs. Munshi became a tower of strength to her
husband. In a warm tribute to her, he wrote: “She made the idea
of the Bhavan her own from the time it was conceived. There
is not an activity in connection with it with which she has not
identified herself; not a collection made, to which her labours
have not contributed a substantial quota of effort; not a building,
of which she has not directed the designing, the execution, the
completion and the equipment. There has not been a moment of
her life when she has not been thinking in terms of its growth
and development”. As for Munshi himself, he had made the
success of the Bhavan the mission of his life.

The institution began its eventful career in a small way
at Andheri, a suburb of Bombay. Munshi, who believed that
Sanskrit provided the master-key to the treasure-house of
India’s ancient wisdom, laid special emphasis on its cultivation
in the institutions stalled by him. Thanks to the munificent gift of
Rs. 2 lakhs by a Marwari magnate, he created a trust, as a
constituent part of the Bhavan, for the teaching of this classical
language. Eventually, it developed into a post-graduate and

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269

research institution recognised by the University of Bombay for
M. A. and Ph.D. degrees. He established the Mumbadevi
Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya to teach Sanskrit and the ancient Hindu
texts according to the traditional methods. Care was, however,
taken to ensure that the students developed a genuine spirit of
enquiry which is the foundation of modem scholarship. He also
provided facilities for Shastris and Acharyas to study the
sacred texts and classical literature in depth so that they might
acquire the necessary felicity to give discourses on India’s
ancient learning.

Munshi also laid great stress on the study of the
Bhagvad Gita , the most popular sacred book of the Hindus.
Called the ‘Song Celestial’, the Gita has evoked the admiration
of many non-Hindus for its lofty and yet pragmatic teachings.
Warren Hastings, Britain’s first Governor-General of India and
a great admirer of the Indian civilization, wrote enthusiastically
about this book. The Gita contained passages, “elevated to a
track of sublimity into which our habits of judgment will find it
difficult to pursue them”. He commended it as “a performance
of great originality, of sublimity of conception, reasoning and
diction, almost unequalled”. Warren Hastings is deliberately
quoted here because he played an outstanding part in promoting
Indological studies in this country. With his encouragement, Sir
William Jones, described as he “Justinian of India”, founded the
Asiatic Society of Bengal in January 1784. In this great work,
he received the help of two other eminent Orientalists, Wilkins
and Halhed, all of whom gave a much-needed institutional basis
for the study of India’s ancient culture. Munshi ’s attempt in our
own time was, therefore, a continuation of this noble but nearly
forgotten tradition. The Sanskrit and Gita examinations conducted
by the Bhavan have achieved great popularity, more than fifty
thousand candidates taking their test in them annually.

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K. M. Munshi

Munshi had highly developed artistic sensibilities. He
wanted an increasing number of India’s young men and young
women to take an active part in drama, dance and music. He
accordingly set up three institutions to impart training in these
arts under expert guidance. The Bharatiya Kala Kendra, which
organises these activities, produces dramas and dance ballets in
English, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi to encourage amateur
talent. It also sponsors inter-collegiate dramatic competitions in
many languages. The Bhavan attaches equally great importance
to the advancement of modem learning, including science and
technology. It runs a large number of institutions, situated in
many parts of the country, imparting higher education in arts,
science, engineering, technology, journalism, advertising, public
relations, modem management, printing, radio, television, other
media of mass communication, modern foreign languages,
including French, German, Russian, Japanese and Spanish. The
Bhavan has also a department which keeps itself in close touch
with the happenings in various parts of the world. It runs
residential public schools. The medium of instmction in these
institutions is English and other principal Indian languages.

The Bhavan, whose main centre is in Bombay, is fast
spreading its activities in many parts of the country and abroad.
Its progress has been so rapid that it surprised even its founder.
Commenting on its expansion, he wrote thus on July 4, 1965:
“The Bhavan is growing because it is ceaselessly striving to
satisfy to some extent the hunger created by our Renaissance in
sensitive minds to recapture the fundamental values of our
culture in a form suited to modern conditions, cutting across
political, religious and socio-economic barriers”*. These values,
according to him, were enshrined in the word “Dharma”, the

* Kulapati s Letter on Life, Literature and Culture, Bhavan Retrospect
and Prospect, July 4, 1965, p. 7.

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271

essence of which was Truth, Joy and Beauty — Satyam,
Shivam and Sundaram . The Bhavan has its centres in New
Delhi and in nearly all the State capitals and important cities in
the country. As far back as 1951, the Prime Minister,
Jawaharlal Nehru said that he was impressed and “almost
overwhelmed by the variety of activities which normally
unfortunately are not encouraged in India and there are not too
many places in the country where attention is paid to the cultural
aspect of our life”. The Bhavan has expanded its activities many
times since these eloquent words were spoken. The clamour for
more and more branches continues unabated. It has now 35
branches in India and three abroad.

Since the Indologists have been publishing their studies
from the middle of the eighteenth century, there has been global
interest in Indian culture. Many Europeans and Americans are
anxious to know more and more about it. Besides, many
Indians, who have made their homes in foreign lands, are
anxious to retain their cultural moorings with their motherland.
There are as many as 25 million Indian nationals who have
settled down abroad. After the Second World War, when many
British African possessions became free countries, a number of
Indians living there migrated to Britain and have made it their
homeland. The leaders of the Indian community there were
asking for an institution that could cater to the cultural needs of
its members. The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan took upon itself the
responsibility of fulfilling their requirements. A Centra! Organising
Committee was formed in London on June 26, 1972 with Lord
Mountbatten, Britain’s last Governor-General of India, as
Patron-in-Chief and Lord Thompson of Fleet Street as Patron.
The Bhavan, which operates from London, has opened many
branches in that country since then. In 1979, the British
Government made a fine gesture by giving a grant of £ 1 1 ,200
to its London branch.

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K. M. Munshi

From the very beginning, the Bhavan has received
warm welcome from the British intellectual classes. Although he
had withdrawn from most of the public institutions, Lord
Mountbatten chose to take deep personal interest in it and saw
to it that more and more Britons participated in its cultural
activities. Harold Macmillan, Britain’s Prime Minister from 1957
to 1963, expressed his admiration for the excellent work the
institution was doing in that country. James Callaghan, former
Labour Prime Minister, was equally enthusiastic in his
appreciation of the Bhavan ’s work. He said : “The existence of
the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan here in London is a tangible proof
of the very close relationship which exists between India and the
United Kingdom. India has much to offer to the people of this
country through her music and dance, her arts and crafts, her
literature and learning”. Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the present
Prime Minister, was all praise for the institution. She said: “Six
years ago we were delighted and greatly honoured when you
decided to establish here in London the first cultural centre
outside India. Today, you are taking a splendid further initiative.
Cultural exchanges promote understanding. The more we know
of one author ideas and history the better we shall understand
what is happening today”.

Mrs. Thatchered went on to say: “Many of us in politics
may seem to be preoccupied by material and economic
problems, but most of us know that there are ultimately more
important things in life. Even democracy itself will not survive
unless it is founded on higher beliefs and values”. More than
two hundred years ago similar sentiments were expressed by
one of the greatest British statesmen sent out to India, Warren
Hastings, who, even as he was laying the foundation of the
British Raj in this country, foresaw that cultural ties between the
two countries would be far more durable than their political

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relations. He stated it as his cardinal belief that wise and efficient
government by Britain in India would be possible only on the
basis of an intimate knowledge of Indian life and civilization. He
gave signal proofs of his greatness in these noble words: “Every
instance which brings their real character home to observation
will impress us with a more generous feeling for their natural
rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our
own. Such instances can only be obtained in their writings; and
these will survive when the British dominion in India shall have
long ceased to exist, and when the sources which it once
yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance”. By its
widening cultural activities in Britain, the Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan is assisting in the prophetic words of Warren Hastings
to come true.

At the time of writing this chapter, the Bhavan is making
brisk preparations for stalling its activities in the United States
of America.* That country is not a stranger to the Indian cultural
heritage. Swami Vivekananda’s epoch-making speech at the
Parliament of Religions in Chicago in September 1 893 and his
subsequent addresses from many platforms brought a new
awareness among the American people about the richness of
ancient Indian culture. The great European thinker and friend of
India, Remain Rolland, has described the Swami ’s Chicago
speech as “a tongue of flame”. The saffron-robed Sanyasi
declared with absolute certitude that Hinduism was the “mother
of religious”, which taught the precepts : “Accept and understand
one another”; “Whoever comes to Me, through whatever form,
I reach him”; “All men are stmggling through paths which in the
end lead to Me”. Swami Vivekananda strove hard to shorten

* A branch of the Bhavan was opened at New York in October 1981.

274

K. M. Munshi

the distance between the East and the West. He wanted them
“to espouse each other”. He saw in India and the West “two

organisms in full youth . two great experiments,

neither of which is yet complete”. He and his followers
established a number of branches of Ramakrishna Mission in
America and elsewhere to propagate that which was great and
noble in ancient India. Announcing their decision to take the
Bhavan to America, its leaders say : “The Bhavan believes that
there are elements in all cultures which transcend all barriers and
knit peoples together. Its ideal is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam —
the world is one family’. Its motto is Aa no bhadraah kratavo
yantu viswatah: “Let noble thoughts come to us from every
side”. There are 300,000 Indians in the United States of
America. Not only they, but most Americans will, as Britons
have been doing in their country, co-operate with the Bhavan in
fulfilling its mission there.

The Bhavan’s main centre in Bombay is the beehive of
activity. It has a well-stocked library, with over 60,000 books,
“perhaps one of the best Indological libraries in the country”, to
quote Munshi. It has published the famous Singhi Series of Jain
literature. As pointed out in the last chapter, the publication of
eleven large volumes on the history and culture of the Indian
people is one of Munshi’s most memorable achievements. He
had a lofty conception of history, to which he gave detailed
expression on December 25, 1956, in his inaugural address to
the nineteenth session of the Indian History Congress.
He regretted that history had been reduced to an “unabashed
propaganda”. “History”, he maintained, “can have only one,
approach — the historical”. It could only be the story of the
integration or the disintegration of “a human aggregate”. He
was firmly of the opinion that India’s history needed to be re¬
written, “first from the Indian point of view. Secondly, not from

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any pre-conceived national bias, but with a view to discover
what, in the course of centuries, we felt and suffered; how we
reached to new conditions; what were the central ideas and
fundamental values which persisted through time; how we were
influenced or overwhelmed by the impact of external forces or
internal disruption and how we survived them to emerge as a
vital and free nation”*. It is the considered opinion of historians
that the Bhavan’s history volumes fully satisfy these exacting
stipulations.

The Bhavan ’s journal, started in 1954, is the institution’s
fortnightly organ in English. It contains scholarly articles on
religion and philosophy and also on important secular subjects.
Besides briefly recording the Bhavan’s activities, the issues
carry book reviews. For a long time, Munshi published his
“Kulapati’s Letters” in this journal. His letters were meant to be
read by all the recipients of the fortnightly and it is most unlikely
that many skipped them. They were invariably informative and
often revealing. The sources of his information were perennial
and dependable so that whatever he wrote bore the stamp not
only of authenticity but also of authority. There in them he
revealed the range of his mind and versatility in all its amplitude.
Dr. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar writes about the letters thus : “It is
an extraordinary feat of substained self-revelation, mingling
memory reverie, speculation, “argument and exhortation". A
number of these letters have been brought together and
published in book form. Two other fortnight! ies, one in Hindi
called Bharati and another in Gujarati entitled Samarpan , are
being published by the Bhavan. While the former began its
career in 1956, the latter was started in 1959. As pointed out
in the last chapter, the Bhavan’s Book University series

* Sparks from a Governors Anvil by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Volume II, pp.
519, 520, 523, 525, 526.

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K. M. Munshi

represents a remarkable publishing venture since it provides
enlightening reading material to the public at an incomparably
cheap price. Some of the books in this series have achieved
phenomenal popularity and their copies have been sold in
hundreds of thousands. The series is a boon to buyers of books
with limited means.

Munshi had deep faith in India’s past, in God and in
prayer and meditation, but he never allowed his mind to be
anchored to dead traditions and beliefs. His attempts to achieve
India’s greatness on the foundation of a glorious past were
entirely rational. It could not be otherwise in a man distinguished
for his intellectual brilliance and legal acumen. The three
principles he enunciated for regulating the Bhavan’s activities
conclusively prove this. He insisted that the “other worldliness”,
which dominated the life of Indians in the past and which in his
view was a “curse”, must be replaced by “a sense of joy in the
life as it is lived”. Those traditions that had outlived their
usefulness and “stifled the creative vitality of the individual and
collective life” should be discarded in favour of “vigorous and
flexible attitudes on life”. Lastly, the fundamental values that had
fertilised the Indian culture in the past should be “captured
afresh for our generation”.

There is nothing outmoded or obscure about these
prescriptions. As he advanced in age and as the travails of the
world began to multiply, Munshi ’s conviction about the need for
a spiritual and cultural renaissance gained in strength. On the
eve of his reaching his seventy-ninth year, he wrote : “In a world
falling to pieces under the impact of an amoral technological
avalanche, it (the Bhavan) tries to hold fast to the fundamental
values of our culture — Rita, Satya, Yagna and Tap as — Faith in
God who informs the Cosmic Order, Truth which is accord
between mind, word and deed; Dedication which offers all

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277

movements of life as offerings to God; Sublimation which
purifies the body and mind, and transmutes instinct, passions
and emotions into things of beauty”.

We are living in an age of exterior accomplishment
never equalled by mankind in all its history. And yet man’s
triumph over nature and his incredible advance in science and
technology have not helped him to overcome his evil propensities.
He is perhaps more unhappy and perplexed than ever before.
This feeling of frustration and bewilderment is not confined to
any particular country or clime. It is shared by all thinking
persons, irrespective of their race or nationality. They know that
a future worth contemplating cannot be achieved by flights to
the far side of the moon. Nor can it be gained by adding wants
and fulfilling them. It can be gained only in our individual hearts.
This is the only choice before man as a free agent with the
capacity to look before and after in the cosmos. Like other true
religions and cultural institutions, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
seeks to indicate how best man can realise his mental serenity.
This was indeed the intention of its founder. We may conclude
this chapter in the felicitous words of Sir H, V. Divatia. He says:
“The Bhavan may be likened to an ancient mango tree which
being well-watered, well-manured and well-nourished, has each
of its branches laden with luscious fruits. Each constituent
activity of the Bhavan is just like such a mango fruit, which
ripens by the common sap rising up from its spreading roots
deep down in the soil of India”.

XVI

Swatantra

Munshi withdrew from THE CONGRESS In

1959, two years after he had laid down the Govemnorship
of Uttar Pradesh. He shared the distress of all right-thinking
persons over the happenings in the country. The Constitution
was not working well, thereby confirming the forebodings of
some of the members of the Constituent Assembly that it would
not yield the desired results. For instance, L. Sahu had warned
that “the ideals on which this draft Constitution is framed have
no manifest relation to the fundamental spirit of India”. Another
member had said: “We wanted the music of veena or sitar, but
here we have the music of an English band”. A third member
had complained that the Constitution represented “a slavish
surrender to the West”. Nehru, who was the guiding spirit in the
Constituent Assembly and inspired the constitution-makers with
his own idealism, felt constrained to concede that “democracy
to be successful, must have a background of informed opinion
and a sense of responsibility”. Munshi knew that such ideal
conditions did not exist in India. This indeed is the reason why
he insisted in the Constituent Assembly and outside in later
years that the powers of the President of the Union and of the
Governors of States should not be explained away. He was
convinced that the cause of both democracy and of good
government would have been better served if they had been
allowed to function as effective functionaries.

18-473 M. ofl&B/ ND/181

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He felt that another safeguard against national
drift was the creation of an alternative to the Congress
Government. This was a widely shared view. India had
deliberately opted for parliamentary government based on the
Westminster system. It was imperative to evolve a sound party
system, deriving its strength and sustenance from a stable
division of political power among the principal elements of the
population. Monopoly government, it was felt, was a complete
negation of parliamentary government. As the premier national
organisation, which had borne the brunt of the struggle for the
country’s independence and whose top leadership consisted of
men of outstanding calibre, the Congress had rightly taken over
the responsibilities of government from the withdrawing British
power. The death of Mahatma Gandhi so soon after the
country’s emancipation was a national calamity, but India was
fortunate in having the formidable duumvirate, Pandit Nehru and
Sardar Patel, to guide its destiny. It was Nehru’s peerless
prestige that saved a strifei-tom India from further falling apart.
It was again his wide-ranging mind and modem outlook which
helped the country to break the shackles of scientific and
technological backwardness. The integration of the Princely
States was almost a s jperhuman task and yet it was accomplished
swiftly and smoothly entirely on account of the Sardar ’s
sagacity and pragmatism. India thus needed strong leadership to
stabilise her affairs and to put her firmly on the road to progress.
Viewed in this light, the death of Sardar Patel in December
1950, in a little over three years after national freedom, was yet
another blow to the country. The burden of piloting the affairs
of a country of India' s continental size, bristling with problems,
some of them intractable, thus fell entirely on the ageing
shoulders of the Prime Minister.

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K. M. Munshi

Nehru’s first decade of premiership was dynamic and
eventful. Perhaps, the second phase of his leadership would
have been equally fruitful if the ruling party and his colleagues
could rise to his expectations. India failed to produce another
Sardar Patel when the Prime Minister was in need of such a
man of strength and resourcefulness to assist him. The Prime
Minister was faced with extremely difficult problems. Neither he
nor the Sardar could ignore the clamour for the reorganisation
of provinces on linguistic lines. The subsequent formation of
linguistic states created new problems that defied any rational
solution. Like C. Rajagopalachari, Munshi was, as we saw in an
earlier chapter, firmly opposed to any such arrangement. He
often expressed the fear that “linguism”, as he described
linguistic bigotry, would seriously undermine the stid weak
concept of India as the land belonging to all its inhabitants. The
deadlock over the river waters dispute gravely crippled the
national economic planning in the all-important agricultural
sector. The adoption of a wide range of restrictive legislation, as
a step towards expanding the public sector, inevitably led to a
tremendous proliferation of the bureaucracy, with
the inevitable consequence of a decline in efficiency and integrity
in the public administration. Thinking persons, with no political
predilections of any kind, honestly felt that a change of
government had become necessary.

There was no dearth of opposition to the Congress, but
the parties ranged against it were too numerous and too
disparate to be able to evolve themselves into a viable
alternative to the ruling party. The Communist Party
of India consisted of able and determined men and women, but
their political and economic ideals had no relevance to the
Indian situation. Their exemplar, Karl Marx, hated nationality
with the rancour of an outcast. Nehru was not opposed to the
Leninist or Marxian doctrine. He was in fact fascinated by them,

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281

but he had no patience with the Indian communists. His attack
on them on February 28, 1949, was forthright. He said : “It (the
Communist Party of India) is deliberately seeking to create
famine conditions by paralysing the railway system so that the
foodstuffs should not be transported, the object being to create
a general background of chaos, a breakdown of administration
and mass uprising”. The hope that the Communists would be
able to step into the shoes of Congressmen at the Centre was
indeed forlorn. C. Rajagopalachari, who, as the Chief Minister
of Madras, had to deal with the Communists, declared with
absolute finality that they were public enemy number one.
Munshi, to whom constitutionalism was the breath of his life,
fully shared such views.

The Socialists, most of whom were former Congressmen,
were also intellectuals who believed in egalitarianism as the first
principle of their political and economic philosophy. The late Dr.
Ram Manohar Lohia, a man of vigorous thought and speech,
spoke for them when he said that they were “equidi stant” from
the Communists and the Congress. While they rightly refused to
believe in violence as a necessary instrument of change, they
were beset with internal discord on unsubstantial ideological
grounds. How the Samyukta Socialist Party could be different
from the Praja Socialist Party when their basic goal was the
same, only the initiated could explain. Disunity in their ranks was
reflected in their electoral performance. In the general election
of 1967, the two factions were able to scrape together 36 seats
in the Lok Sabha, while their strength in the House after the
1971 elections was reduced to a pitiful five. There was
refreshing candour in the admission of the Praja Socialist Party,
whose executive conceded in April 1962 that the electoral
reverses of the Socialists proved their “failure to carry home to
the voters the very vital differences” that separated them from
the Congress. The Party recognised that “democracy cannot

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K. M. Munshi

function effectively unless there is an alternative focus of loyalty
available to the people which could ultimately provide an
alternative government”. With the formation of the Janata Party
in 1977, the Socialists have ceased to exist as a separate group.

The Bharatiya Jan Sangh, founded by the late
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951, was also no match for
the Congress. It made its debut into national politics with the
undeserved stigma of being a communal organisation. Dr.
Mookerjee was clear in his statement on the composition and
policies of his party. He said: “The Bharatiya Jan Sang emerges
today as an all-India political party which will function as the
principal party in opposition”. He wanted it to belong to all.
“We have”, he declared, thrown our party open to all citizens
of India, irrespective of caste, creed or community. While we
recognise that in matters of customs, habits, religion and
language, Bharat presents a unique diversity, the people must be
united by a bond of fellowship and understanding inspired by
deep devotion and loyalty to the spirit of a common motherland”.

The party laid great stress on national unity and strength,
opposing all divisive tendencies at home and insisting on military
strength based on industrial development. The sudden and
premature death of its founder, a man of all-India stature, in
1953 was as much a loss to the country as it undoubtedly was
to the party. Nevertheless, the rank and file of the Sangh
worked zealously to popularise it both among the masses and
the classes. Its representation in the Lok Sabha rose from 4 in
1957 to 14 in 1962 and 35 in 1967 but, to the astonishment of
most people, it slumped to 22 in 1971. Its championship of
Hindi as the national language scared the South
away from it. Persistent propaganda against it succeeded in
creating a durable impression among the secularists and the
deprived sections of the population that the Sangh stood

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283

for none except the upper class Hindus and the capitalists.
Following its assimilation by the Janata Party in 1977,
it lost its separate identity. It is now known as the Bharatiya
Janata Party.

There were other parties, mostly regional, which did not
matter at all in the weights and measures of national politics. The
Dravida Munnetra Kazagam is largely a Tamilnadu-based party,
the aims of which do not go beyond advancing the interests of
the people speaking Tamil. Parochialism and self-glorification
are its main preoccupations. It is implacably opposed to Hindi
and asserts that attempts to popularise this language in the
South are unabashed acts of aggression by the North! The
Akali Dal of Punjab is interested only in the Sikh community.
Master Tara Singh was its most uncompromising leader. In later
years, it succeeded in winning a separate State for this
community by compelling a second division of Punjab. There is
not much to say about such parties as the Bharatiya Kranti Dal
and the Samyukta Vidhayak Dal, whose sonorous names could
not conceal their organisational weakness. Their leaders were
noted neither for ability nor for steadiness of purpose. These
parties came unheralded and retreated into oblivion without
much notice. They were rootless but their existence encouraged
defections, the bane of Indian political life.

It thus became imperative to create a cohesive non¬
communist alternative to the Congress in order to make
parliamentary democracy meaningful in this country. India had
adopted the British governmental system. It, therefore, became
necessary to acquire some of the virtues which had ensured the
success of that system in Britain. That country has no written
constitution, but not long ago its wisest statesmen had a strong
constitutional sense. “The strongest element in this sense”, says
a writer, “has been that British government is an affair of limits

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K. M. Munshi

and balances. The Minister as well as the subject is under an
impartial law. Not only must the Government respect the law as
it stands at any moment; in changing it, it must have regard to
prescriptive rights and the organic nature of British society as
well as natural justice or moral imperatives”. This constitutional
doctrine had a profound significance to the rulers of that land.
It was indeed stronger and more pervasive “perhaps than in a
country where it is laid down in a document and protected only
by a court of law or a two- thirds majority. It was imbedded in
the hearts and heads of the best of those who ran the system”.*

The British system also depended for its stability
and efficiency on a well-regulated and well-tried party system.
The British party system is a product of the growth of free
institutions in Britain and has developed into a method of
providing government rather than becoming a means of
expressing shades of opinion. Long ago, Macaulay described
the two political parties of his time as the fore and hind legs of
a stag. It is of the essence of the British party system that no
group or party is allowed to acquire a monopoly of power.
Churchill was acclaimed as the architect of British victory during
the last war, but the end of it saw him stripped of all the panoply
of power. Nor have the British parties made the mistake of
treating decisions by majority as an absolute and unquestionable
principle. They regard the Constitution as, to use Burke’s
famous words, “something more than a problem in arithmetic”.

In all democracies, the working of the political system is
the business of the parties. In Britain, the Tory and the Liberal
parties and later the Labour Party have played
a great part in evolving a sound and durable party system. Apart

* The Prime Ministers: From Lord John Russell to Edward Heath
by E. J. Feuchtwanger, Volume II, George Allen & Unwin
1975, p. 203.

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285

from the fact that it is through the parties that the people can
rule, the two-party system in that country provides the best
means by which the citizen is presented with the choice between
alternative rulers. It is precisely for this reason that great
importance is attached to the Opposition. “It is not untrue to
say”, writes Sir Ivor Jennings, “that the most important part of
Parliament is the Opposition in the House of Commons”.* An
institutional Opposition is necessary to subject the activities of
those in power to regular scmtiny. Constmctive criticism makes
the rulers alert and aware of their shortcomings and may lead
to the improvement of policies. Besides, a well-founded
exposure of government actions and intentions provides a
welcome release for the public’s frustration with their rulers in
addition to keeping the people aware of the deficiencies of
those in power. In Britain, the Opposition party plays its role
diligently and mostly with a sense of responsibility, because
“Her Majesty’s Opposition is essentially Her Majesty’s Alternative
eager for office”.

A decade after national independence, some of the best
minds in India began to think seriously how best the conditions
such as those described above could be established in this
country. Outside the Congress, every important section of
opinion wanted that a viable alternative to the Congress should
be created without any further loss of time. The credit for
bringing such a project to fruition goes to M. R. Masani, a
former Congressman and a Socialist leader who later adopted
temperate politics as the philosophy of his life. He was opposed
to the Congress Government’s “statist and communistic panaceas”
and began to canvass briskly for the formation of a new party.
He approached C. Rajagopalachari to take the lead, but the

* Cabinet Government by Sir Ivor Jennings, Cambridge University
Press, 1951, p. 439.

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K. M. Munshi

latter at first pleaded ill-health and old age and referred Masani
to Jayaprakash Narayan. The move was heartily endorsed by
Jayaprakash Narayan, who attended a meeting convened by
Rajaji but desired that the Grand Old Man should be at the
helm. In May 1959, both Rajaji and Masani spoke from a
common platform at Bangalore, which paved the way for the
formation of the Swatantra Party in Madras on June 4.

Rajagopalachari at once became Swatantra’ s stellar
attraction. His long life had been one of suffering and sacrifice
for the liberation of his motherland. In this noble undertaking, he
had been a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal
Nehru. He had in addition achieved the distinction of being the
first and last Governor-General of free India. Nehru wrote of
him in 1940 that his “brilliant intellect, selfless character, and
penetrating powers of analysis have been a tremendous asset to
our cause”. Rajaji was indeed acclaimed as the most astute
intellectual among the elite of Indian nationalists. His solicitude
for the underdog was never in doubt. Perhaps, it would not be
incorrect to summarise his philosophy of life in terms of the
Periclean concept which gives primacy to political liberty and
social justice in the government of human affairs. No doctrine
was repugnant to him so long as it was derived from these twin
principles. He was opposed to imported ideas and ideals having
no relevance to Indian conditions. He did not think that
antipathy to free enterprise was in the country’s best interests.
India’s greatest need was the creation of more wealth. He was
convinced that the contribution of private individuals and

* While Masani gives the date of Swatantra’s formation as June 8, 1959,
Dr. Howard L. Erdman says that it was founded on June 4. See A
Decade of Close Association by M. R. Masani in the Souvenir Volume,
Rajaji — 93, p. 131 and The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism
by Howard L. Erdman, Cambridge University Press, 1967, p. 65.

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287

institutions to this end was as precious as that of the State. He
welcomed the Government’s initiative in promoting public good
but was averse to “statism” with its implication of stifling the
liberty of the individual and the spirit of enterprise. He was, of
course, firmly opposed to dishonesty in business and industry.

Munshi was clear in his mind that the Constitution carried
the necessary provisions to promote such social and economic
changes as the rulers and the people of the country wanted. It
is true that the Directive Principles of State Policy were not
legally enforcible, but the very fact that they formed an integral
part of the supreme statute of the land and gave clear directions
about the manner in which justice should be done to the
common man invested them with great importance. The modem
State, with a democratic set up, had necessarily got to be a
welfare state so that it was unnecessary for a government to
espouse any particular “ism”. This is the reason why Munshi
always insisted that the country must have a strong Centre.
Such a dispensation would ensure not only the protection of the
country from external aggression and internal disruption but also
the adoption of the necessary measures for the social and
economic welfare of the masses. Forces that tended to frustrate
this goal should be suppressed. He feared that the creation of
linguistic states had done great harm to the cause of national
solidarity. He certainly did not advocate their abolition, but
wanted that the policy of the country’s principal government
should be more pragmatic. He hoped that Swatantra would fulfil
this need.

The Swatantra Party came into existence as a counterpoise
to the mling Congress, many of whose economic policies were
anathema to it. The Congress resolution at Nagpur on joint co¬
operative farming hastened the advent of the new party. It was
feared that the Government was aiming at the collectivization of

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K. M. Munshi

agriculture. Although during its short-lived career, Swatantra’s
mass appeal was meagre, it drew into its fold a large number
of persons who had distinguished themselves in various walks of
life. Its membership consisted of farmers’ representatives,
eminent political leaders, economists, educationists, retired civil
servants, industrialists, many members of the former Princely
Order and several others. N. G. Ranga, a peasant populist, is
an Oxford-educated economist, who was a Congress stalwart
in Andhra Pradesh. He is the founder of the Kisan Sabha, a
peasants' organisation, and has frequently attended International
conferences as an agricultural expert. He was elected to the
Presidentship of Swatantra. An equally distinguished entrant into
the new party was Bhailalbhai Patel of Gujarat who, though an
engineer by profession, abandoned his career in i942 in
response to Sardar Patel’s suggestion that he should do
Gandhian constructive work in rural Gujarat. Affectionately
known as Bhaikaka, he has founded a major modem residential
college at Anand and won the gratitude and admiration of the
people of Gujarat by encouraging the establishment of modem,
highly efficient small-scale industries.

Rajagopalchari’s appeal to the “old warriors of the
Congress” to rally under the Swatantra banner met with good
response. Dr. H. K. Mahatab of Orissa, K. Hanumanthaiya of
Karnataka, Jai Narain Vyas of Rajasthan, S. K. D. Paliwal of
Uttar Pradesh and Sardar Udham Singh Nagoke of Punjab
were among the senior Congressmen who decided to make
common cause with the new party. Masani and Ranga were
seasoned parliamentarians but their defeat in the 1962 elections
created a desperate need for finding an alternative leadership of
the party in the national legislature. The names of M. S. Aney
of Vidarbha and Prakash Vir Shastri were prominently mentioned
for such leadership. In good old days, Aney had been the right-
hand man of Lokmanya Tilak. He was a staunch Congressman

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289

but had strong reservations about some of Mahatma Gandhi’s
principles and policies. He was acting Congress President in
1933. He was an experienced legislator and belonged to the
school of C. R. Das, Pandit Motilal Nehru and Pandit Madan
Mohan Malaviya. A fiercely freedom-loving man, he never
hesitated to call a spade even when he was the Governor of
Bihar, Aney welcomed the formation of Swatantra but preferred
to remain in the Congress fold. Prakash Vir Shastri of Uttar
Pradesh, an independent and assertive M.P, would certainly
have made a valuable addition to the Swatantra group in the
Lok Sabha.

N. C. Chatterjee, a former President of the Hindu
Mahasabha and one of the ablest lawyers in the country, joined
the new party and became its head in West Bengal. Professor
M. Ruthnaswamy, who taught political science and rose to
become the Vice Chancellor of Annamalai University, joined the
new party with enthusiasm. He was one of the most prominent
lay Catholics in the country. Another prominent non-Congressman
to join Swatantra was J. B. Mohammed Imam of former
Mysore State. He had been a member of the Muslim League
till the country’s partition in 1947. Later, he joined Acharya J.
B. Kripalani’s Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party. Dr. Erdman writes
about him thus: “A very staunch secularist and anti-communist,
Imam felt very strongly the need to consolidate the opposite
forces in India and, more generally, to reduce the number of
parties overall, with the ultimate objective of establishing an
approximation of a two-party system in the country”.*

The party had also a sizable number of former civil
servants, most of them with a distinguished record of service
both during the British period and later. C. C. Desai was at one

* The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservation by Howard L. Erdman,
p. 133.

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time India’s High Commissioner in Pakistan while H. M. Patel
had held the most responsible administrative positions in the
finance and defence ministries. He later became Union Finance
Minister, when the Janata Party came into power in 1977. V. P.
Menon was another able civilian whose tact and resourcefulness
were of inestimable value to Sardar Patel in promoting the
peaceful integration of Princely India. V. Narahari Rao was a
retired Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Narayan
Dadekar was another distinguished ex-civilian, who used his
expert knowledge of finance and accounts with devastating
effect in Parliament. In May 1970, he caused a countrywide
interest in the salaries of Union Ministers by calling attention to
their size. J. M. Lobo Prabhu, another former I.C.S. man, was
happy to join Swatantra. He is a Christian. He noted with
satisfaction that when he served in the Madras Province when
Rajagopalachari was the Chief Minister there was no interference
of any kind in the administration.

Many leading industrialists, including Sir Homi Mody, A.
D. Shroff, Murarji Vaidya and Dharamsey Khatau, joined the
party. A number of dispossessed princes, especially from
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, made common cause
with Swatantra. Although their principalities had been annexed
and their ruling powers were taken away from them, some of
them continued to retain the affection and esteem of their former
subjects. This was particularly noticeable in areas where the
popular ministries had failed to rise, to the people’s expectations.
For instance, in the first elections, the Maharaja of Jodhpur won
by a large majority against Jai Narain Vyas who forfeited his
deposit. Vyas later won in a by-election and became the first
Chief Minister of Raj asthan . 4 4 Whatever the situation might have
been in the rest of India”, says the former Maharani of Jaipur,
“in former princely territories, people voted, when they had the

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opportunity, from a sense of the age-old bond between the
Indian ruler and his subjects. The actual political platform was
a secondary consideration”. Commenting on her own husband’s
popularity, she writes: “If anyone had needed the proof that the
bond that existed between rulers and people in most of the
princely states was deep and genuine, they had only to follow
Jai around any day of the week in Jaipur”.*

The party thus consisted mostly of intellectual and affluent
classes, a good number of whom held liberal views
on social and economic matters. Swatantra’s foundation
document consisted of twenty-one articles which reflected
Rajagopalachari’s assertion that his party stood “for the
protection of the individual against the increasing trespasses of
the State”. It objected to the policy of “statism”, to the
“collectivization and bureaucratic management of the rural
economy” and to “crippling taxation, abnormal deficit financing,
and foreign loans which are beyond the capacity of the country
to repay”. Notwithstanding the sobriety which marked the
blueprint, it failed to win popular support. From the beginning,
Swatantra was decried as the “richmen’s party” which played
no small part in damaging its image. It was dismissed as a party
of conservative rich peasants in the South, of a few finance
capitalists and of feudal chiefs. Nehru condemned it as
belonging to “the middle ages of lords, castles and zamindars”.
He wondered what the party stood for since it harboured
diverse elements in its ranks.

In politics, such attacks on rival parties are inevitable.
The fact that so much notice was taken of Swatantra proved its
effectiveness. Neither conservatism nor the doctrine of the

* A Princes Remembers: Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur by
Gayatri Devi of Jaipur and Shantha Rama Rau, J. B. Lippincolt Co.,
Philadelphia and New York, 1976, pp. 230, 254.

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inevitability of gradualness is sterile. Disraeli, the British
statesman, said that we must be “conservative to conserve all
that is good and radical to uproot all that is bad”.
The tenability of the charge that Swatantra consisted of a
congeries of disparate groups should also be assessed from the
wider perspective of national necessity. The country was in
desperate need of institutional opposition and this essential
requirement Swatantra sought to meet. The fact that not all its
members were like-minded was not its exclusive infirmity. The
Indian National Congress has always been a composite
organisation, harbouring many irreconcilable elements in its
ranks. This is so in one of the greatest democracies in the
world, namely, America. The Ajmerican system is most prone to
constitutional deadlocks but its excellent party system has
successfully surmounted this problem, although the composition
of both the Democratic and Republican parties is bewilderingly
ill-assorted.

Sir Donald Brogan, who is a great authority on the
American Constitution, says: “It is easier to understate, than to
overstate, the doctrinal disunion of American parties, to create
the impression that it is merely an exaggerated version of the
doctrinal overlapping which marks all parties in all countries.
But it is not merely a case of pink shading into red, of left
overlapping the centre. In the American system, the right of the
Democratic Party does not overlap the left, but the right of the
Republican Party. The radicals of the Republican party are as
radical as the radicals of the Democrats, the conservatives as
conservative”.* In Western Democracies, the primary aim
of the political parties is to compete for power, irrespective
of their social and economic convictions. The fact that they have

* Government of the People : A Study of the American Political
System by D. W. Brogan, Harper, 1946, p. 38.

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293

to struggle to attain their goal ensures that their policies are
progressive, for otherwise the people will reject them. The party
system also provides the best safeguard against any single party
claiming the divine right to govern for ever. So, in countries like
America and Canada, ideological differences are not of much
importance, for the prize for which the parties fight is power. As
Professor K. C. Wheare points out, “most of the time it has not
been easy to say what divides them beyond the fact — and it is
more important than is often realised — that one party was in
office and the other party was out of office . ”#

Swatantra had, therefore, every right to aspire
to become an alternative to the Congress. During the short
period it was in existence, it certainly became a major political
force in the country. Its achievements in the elections prove this.
In the elections of 1962, its strength in the Lok Sabha was 18
and it shot up to 44 in the 1967 elections. The great infirmity
of the party, however, was that its leadership was more
distinguished than popular. It had no means of penetrating the
countryside in order to be able to tap the reservoir of votes
there. Masani admitted this fact when he said that his party had
still to “build its own structure on a sound and more broadbased
social basis. It has, in particular, to devote specific attention to
massive sections of the people, like Harijans, Adivasis, small
farmers, industrial and agricultural labour, shopkeepers, youth
and women”.* * Since this was not done, the party suffered
serious reverses in the 1971 elections when it could send only
eight members to the Lok Sabha. Masani, who was then the
party’s President, resigned from that office despite
Rajagopalachari’s appeal to him to carry on. Swatantra ceased

# Federal Government by K.C. Wheare, Oxyford, 1946, p. 87.

* The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism by H. L. Erdman,
p. 255.

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to be a force to be reckoned with thereafter. Although Munshi
was closely associated with its formation, he could not
contribute much to its growth and durability. He was not a man
of the masses, although his solicitude for them was undoubted.
His death in February 197 1 synchronised with the demise of the
party he had helped to found.

XVII

The Man

MUNSHI WAS A HANDSOME PERSON. He was
air-complexioned, short, wiry and the very incarnation
of energy. He was a man of deep piety but he also worshipped
work. His dynamism and restless disposition drove him to
participate in numerous activities, far beyond the range of men
of normal vigour. His intellect was pellucid and it drew its
sustenance from the springs of his natural instincts and romantic
emotions. He bore deep affection for his father, Maneklal, and
put his mother, Tapibehn, on the pedestals of a goddess.
Maneklal, a non-Matriculate, was a government official, but he
was endowed with noteworthy literary abilities and wrote a
drama in verse. Munshi owed much to his mother, who
remained his mentor both in the years of penury and later when
he scaled new heights of affluence and recognition. Her belief in
God was deep and unaffected. She had made a careful study
of the scriptures of her religion, including the two Epics and the
Pur anas. She fed her little son with tales of the great deeds
performed by the heroic figures in Ramayana and Mahabharata
and thus instilled in him a deep and abiding admiration for the
greatness and the glory of his motherland. She wrote her
memoirs in which she recorded her devotion to God. Though a
firm believer in the immemorial virtues of her ancient land, she
never forgot that she was living in a changing world. When after
the death of his wife, Atilakshmi in 1924, Munshi wanted to
marry Lilavati, a widow, Tapibehn readily gave her consent. In

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a conservative and diehard society, which viewed with repugnance
the slightest departure from the hidebound traditions, marriage
with a widow was undoubtedly the most memorable event. It
can be truly said that Munshi would not have been able to make
Lilavati his life’s partner without the blessings of his courageous
mother. He, however, retained tender memories of his first wife
whose devotion to him during her lifetime was exemplary.

Munshi and Lilavati were married in 1926. They were
the most remarkable couple. Lilavati, whose first marriage had
brought her no happiness, was a highly talented and courageous
woman. She was a brilliant and resourceful writer in Gujarati
and struck out a new path in the literature of that language by
publishing as far back as 1924 the pen-portraits of famous
Gujarati writers and social workers. The articles, noted as much
for their unconventionality as for their style, were published in
Gujarat , a prestigious literary journal edited by no less a
person than Munshi. The young lady, who could not possibly
ignore the contribution of the Editor to Gujarati literature,
minced no words in her sketch when calling attention to his
idiosyncrasies. She noted that he was endowed with “sparkling
intellect” but burdened with an “unconcealed egotism.” She,
however, softened the blow by adding : “Deep underneath this
hard crust of intellect is concealed an under-current of love
flowing from a heart. Someone may have tasted it, but the
waters of the spring are not accessible to all”. The translation
that has been handed down to us does poor justice to the
original. Has it not been said thatone has to translate Cicero to
despise him?

Lilavati Munshi’s literary talents are revealed in all their
amplitude in her works, which include a historical novel called

19-473 M. of I &B/ND/81.

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Kumaradevi, character sketches and essays on a wide variety
of subjects. Munshi regarded her as much more than a wife.
She was his inspirer, comrade and the staff of his life for full
forty-five years, the two merging into each other as avibhakta
atma or undivided soul. Besides, making a notable contribution
to Gujarati literature, Mrs. Munshi fully participated in a number
of cultural, social and literary activities. She was a member of
the Bombay Legislative Assembly from 1936 to 1952 and later
moved on to the Rajya Sabha where she made her mark
through her studied speeches on important national issues. She
was a tower of strength to her husband in his multifarious
activities. He owed his success as Union Food Minister not a
little to her since she laboured most indefatigably
to popularise noncereal foods as a means of tiding over the
national food crisis. She was only second to him in building up
the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan into a great national and international
cultural organisation. She died on January 6, 1978, at the age
of seventy-nine.

Munshi’s indebtedness to the three women who influenced
his life is best stated in his own words. He wrote: “My life
would not have been what it was and is without the three
women who have given me love and devotion in unbounded
measure. The first gave me birth and presided over my life
during its first forty-nine years with a rare wisdom. The second
shared my early years of struggle and success with a unique
self-surrender. And the last has partnered my struggles and
achievements with a spirit of unity which I dreamt of in fiction,
but little hoped to realise in life. In giving her to me, God fed my
hungry soul and made the course of years a pilgrimage of joy.
They have, each in her own way, surrounded me with
understanding and encouragement; to them must go the credit
for whatever I have been or done”.

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There were also others who profoundly influenced the
course of Munshi’s life. The virile message of Swami Dayanand
Saras wati, founder of the Arya Samaj, was a constant source
of inspiration to him. The Swami boldly proclaimed the
paramountcy of the Vedas and the Upanishads in the cultural
and spiritual life of the Hindus and called upon them to break
the shackles of superstition and meaningless social inhibitions
and strive to regain the greatness of their Aryan forebears. It
was from Dayanand and Sri Aurobindo that Munshi drew the
inspiration to work for the restoration to the country its early
and noble traditions, unsullied by ritual and dogma. Aurobindo
also stimulated in him a passionate urge to struggle for national
liberation. Munshi was also attracted towards the rationalism of
Bankim Chandra Chatterji, a towering intellectual of his time.
The celebrated Bengali novelist also roused his romantic
imagination “to go in search of new worlds”. Not only leaders
of recent times, but great historical figures, especially of the
Chalukyan age, inspired and illumined his attitude to life. They
were Munjal, Kak, Khengar, Ranak, Manjari, Chaula and Bada
Maharaj, who brought the golden age to Gujarat.

Munshi was not a political extremist, while he made no
compromise on the issue of national freedom, he was not
prepared to turn a blind eye on the good points in the British
Raj. He could not ignore the fact that the ideas of democracy,
nationalism and responsible government came from the West
through Britain. As a member of Dr. Annie Besant’s All-India
Home Rule League, founded in September 1916, he worked
for the country’s freedom, with Jinnah as his political leader.
With Lokmanya Tilak associated with this organisation, it could
not be dismissed as a hole and corner body. Munshi’s
collaboration with Jinnah could not, however, last long,
especially after the advent of Mahatma Gandhi to national
politics. Before the parting of the ways came, Jinnah was the

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hero of the educated classes of Western India. He had played
no small part in bringing the Muslim League closer to the
Congress. When he eventually became a cheerless and cold
blooded politician, turning his back on everything he had stood
for during the best part of his life, Munshi bade a final good-bye
to him.

Munshi gladly accepted Gandhi’s political leadership
because he saw in the Mahatma a man of action par
excellence, with the capacity to rouse the dormant energies of
India’s millions and harness them to purposeful action. This was
not a small asset in a country whose people were not only
disarmed but demoralised. Centuries of bondage and grinding
poverty had inured them to indifference and inaction. There
were certainly many serious grievances against the foreign
regime, but the illiterate masses could understand only those that
hurt them most. Gandhi proved the uniqueness of his leadership
by winning countrywide support even for local and relatively
unimportant grievances. Whether it was Kheda Champaran or
Bardoli, he demonstrated the strength of mass action.

What struck Munshi and others most was that, although
he possessed such immense strength, Gandhi was perhaps the
mildest among men. It was his firm conviction that virtue should
be practised for its own sake without any expectation of
reward. This stoical idea was extraordinary because morality
has no relevance in politics. Munshi was further drawn towards
Gandhi because he could see that the Mahatma had purged his
heart and mind of all hatred and anger. In his eyes, as in the
eyes of most Indians, Gandhi had descended on the Indian
political scene as a new Messiah.

Nevertheless, thanks to his keen perception and sense of
realism, he did not accept every policy and programme of the
Mahatma as practicable or infallible. He had strong reservations

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on non-violence as an absolute principle. Its unsuitability was
vividly brought home, especially in periods of communal
violence. Munshi was not prepared to appreciate the correctness
of the Gandhian prescription that the Hindus should agree to
make unlimited sacrifices, including the offer of their lives in
millions, in order to dissuade the Muslim communalists from
treading the path of separatism.

Munshi’s resignations from the Congress arose entirely
from a crisis of conscience and were prompted by no other
consideration. His Akhand Hindustan campaign, based on the
assertion that the entire Indian sub-continent was the native soil
of all Indians, irrespective of their creedal affiliations, could not
possibly be conducted by him as a member of the Congress.
When vital national issues were at stake, he did not number
party loyalty among the ten commandments.

Whether Munshi was in the Congress party or out of it,
the ties that bound him to the Mahatma remained indissoluble.
Gandhi had great regard for the younger man for his outstanding
abilities as a lawyer, as an organiser and as a creative writer.
Even on non-political subjects, he had his own reservations
about Munshi’s writings, but it was impossible for him to
withhold his admiration for the boldness and the fertility of the
writer’s imagination and the superb style in which he could
clothe it. The Mahatma was himself a distinguished writer of
Gujarati prose and he could readily see a similar merit in other’s
works. Munshi has written a good deal about his closeness to
Gandhi. During his great campaign against untouchability,
Gandhi received much valuable material from Munshi in support
of his cause on the basis of scriptural authority. There was
indeed nothing formal in the relations between the two. Munshi
and the members of his family often visited the Mahatma and
stayed with him in his Ashram at Sabarmati. When Gandhi went

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to Bombay, Munshi was among his frequent visitors and often
accompanied him in his morning walks. There were many
occasions when Gandhi gave him difficult and delicate
assignments, such as the defence of some eight persons in the
Princely State of Ratlam who had been accused of seeking to
“overthrow the lawfully established government’ ’ of the Maharaja.
Gandhi showed his appreciation of Munshi’s literary talents by
writing a Foreword to the latter’s book Gujarat and its
Literature , published in 1935.

The relations between Sardar Patel and Munshi were as
between two brothers. A shrewd judge of men, the Sardar had
great confidence in the sagacity of the younger man. Munshi
admired him for his pragmatism, for his superb organising
abilities and for his masterful personality. Long association and
experience had convinced him that the Sardar was a man of few
words but of mighty deeds. It was mostly at his instance that
Munshi was given important work in the Constituent Assembly.
Justice N. H. Bhagwati writes about the two thus: “Sardar as
a hard-headed politician and a patriot, and Munshi as a student
of history and a legatee of that emotional worship of the
Motherland which he inherited from his early association with
Sri Aurobindo, alike realised that the destiny of the country lay
in its being united and strong”.

A good deal of mud was flung by political
opportunists at both the Sardar and Munshi, accusing them
of communalism. There could not be a greater falsehood than
this. Such a calumny was circulated against them because they
were unsparing in their exposure of narrow-mindedness in
others. Munshi was close for decades to Jinnah, the future
founder of Pakistan, and religion played no part in their
relationship. A Muslim art connoisseur, Chandabhai Muchhala
by name, was a permanent resident in the Munshi family was

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treated as one of its own members till his death. Munshi’s
robust secularism was the best safeguard against his lapsing into
intolerance. Stating categorically that Indian culture was much
more than Aryan culture, he declared: “We cannot repudiate the
Gandhara art because of Greek influence. We cannot disown
the Taj Mahal because of its Islamic inspiration. We cannot
reject the art, the manners, the institutions, which Hindu-
Muslim adjustments have given birth to. We cannot even throw
off the Western influence and institutions which have grown into
our life”.

Munshi wrote that he loved his profession as
a lawyer. He had every reason to do so. He had gone to
Bombay in 1907 in utter penury and four years later joined the
Bar there when it abounded in legal giants. It required more
than ordinary abilities for a young and diffident man from the
mofussil to move to the front rank in a highly competitive
profession. He was able to achieve this feat because he was
endowed with superlative intelligence, to which he harnessed
enormous industry. He was subtle and agile and was always
thorough with his briefs. His clients had complete confidence in
his capacity to do full justice to their cause. When dealing with
highly, complicated cases, he sometimes disappeared from his
residence, his whereabouts being known only to a few, in order
to discover in a calm place the crucial law point as the
foundation for his argument. His wide knowledge of law was of
great help to him in winning the cases. He built up an extensive
practice and made large sums of money but he refused to
succumb to the seductions of wealth and prosperity. He
engaged himself in politics, in literature and in many other
activities with the same zest as he showed in the pursuit of the
legal profession. Even so, he succeeded in winning a distinguished
position among the eminent lawyers of India. “His work at law,”
wrote M. C. Setalvad, “so outstanding and distinguished, would

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perhaps have been far greater and more remarkable if his prime
loyalty had been to the profession”.

It was in the fitness of things that a man of Munshi’s
stature as a lawyer was called upon to play an active part in the
framing of free India’s constitution. He had equipped himself
thoroughly for the new job by collecting a good deal of
literature on the systems of government that obtained in various
countries. It was Munshi’s ardent desire that the system of the
Indian government should be a model of political wisdom. It
was not sufficient to create democratic institutions, but provision
should be made for ensuring their efficient working. Only then
would the promises made to the downcasts and the outcasts of
society be redeemed. He was a firm believer in the well-tried
doctrine that if laws were good, morals would be good. He was
also convinced that only an honest and knowledgeable citizen
could make a good legislator. By adopting a highly sophisticated
system of government, based on democracy, India had
launched a bold experiment in her history. He wanted it to
succeed. This is the reason why he ceaselessly advocated a
strong Centre. He was certainly not a rabid centralist and
wanted that the constituent states should enjoy a large measure
of internal autonomy, but he advocated the investment of
decisive powers in the principal government as a safeguard
against internal disruption and external aggression. He also
pleaded that the President of the Union and the Governors of
States should not be treated as mere ornamental figures but as
effective functionaries. With the people not inured to democratic
principles and practices and in the absence of an organised
opposition party to provide an alternative government, he
feared that unchecked parliamentary authority was apt to lead
to undersirable results. He, therefore, urged that the President
at the Centre and the Governors in the States should be
untrammelled in functioning as the ultimate authority on occasions

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when their intervention was considered imperative in the
national interests.

Munshi gave much thought to the language question. In
this polyglot county it was most difficult to make out a decisive
case on behalf of any language as the principal medium of
administration and communication. After a good deal of
reflection and after prolonged deliberations with fair-minded
and knowledgeable persons, he came to the conclusion that
Hindi deserved this distinction. Having made up his mind about
it, he became its most eloquent advocate. He was equally
anxious that the regional languages must be fully developed. A
great writer in Gujarati, it was impossible for him to adopt any
other attitude. He also believed in the cultivation of English as
the most suitable international vehicle of thought and expression.
There were many discerning Indians who held similar views,
some of them with a deeper conviction. For instance, C.
Rajagopalachari said: “English language is the greatest gift of
Goddess Saraswati to India”. Munshi was, however,
uncompromising on the question of developing Indian languages.
He had seen how excessive devotion to English had weaned
many Indians from their mother tongue which had ceased to be
their “experienced” language. He was convinced that a sound
grounding in one’s own mother tongue was necessary for
gaining mastery over other languages.

Munshi proved his mettle as an administrator both in
Bombay and in New Delhi. H. M. Patel has recorded the
conversation he had overheard between two officials when
Munshi was the Union Minister for Food and Agriculture. Then-
talk ran thus : “What is it that makes one so fond of Munshi?
It is not as if he is always talking sense”. “But even when he is
wrong, and persistent in his wrong-headedness, you like him.
How do you explain that?” Perhaps, the officials did not discuss
the answers or Patel did not pause to overhear them further.

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Munshi was liked by his officials because he did not throw his
weight about and was not dogmatic about his views. He knew
how difficult it was to administer a modem State. The volume
of work which a single department in a Ministry has to transact
is so vast and varied that only those equipped with specialised
knowledge and training can deal with it competently. As
Minister, it was certainly his right and responsibility to lay down
policies but it was prudent to leave their execution to the
officials. He believed in “remote control”, that is to say assume
responsibility for the general direction of his Ministry’s affairs
without interfering with its day-to-day working. He reposed full
confidence in his subordinates and readily accepted suggestions
from them if they were sound. He was popular with them
because he never let them down, taking the blame upon himself
if anything went wrong.

Munshi was much more than a lawyer, politician or
minister. He was a gifted writer. His first social novel, Verni
Vasulat (Revenge Accomplished), published in 1913, worked
like an enchantment on the Gujarati-reading public. Novels,
social and historical, short plays, essays and various other forms
of literature, except poetry, flowed ceaselessly from his pen. The
source of his inspiration was the abundant scriptural and secular
literature of his own land and the works of distinguished
Western writers. Many of his writings have been translated into
English and into a number of Indian languages. An outstanding
feature of the fiction created by him is that it tells the story
interestingly, creates plenty of dramatic situations, makes the
dialogue gripping, and invests the characters with life and vigour.
“I have”, he says with remarkable modesty, “remained first and
foremost a story-teller, not a moralist”. He also made an
outstanding contribution to Gujarati drama by pioneering its
rejuvenation. He wrote a good deal in Eglish, a sizable portion
of which will survive. What place he is entitled to in the kingdom

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of Gujarati letters only experts can say, but, from all accounts,
it is distinguished and durable.

Perhaps, Munshi’s most outstanding contribution to the
cultural renaissance of India is the founding of the Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan in November 1938. He considered it necessary
to establish this institution so that India’s ancient learning, sacred
as well as secular, which had welded the diverse elements of the
Indian population into a single community, should not be
allowed to languish or suffer eventual extinction. He wanted to
revitalize this heritage by bringing it into close alliance with
modern knowledge. His bold conception, stimulated by his
gifted wife, Lilavati, and its brilliant execution have won for him
grateful thanks from Indians of all classes and from eminent
foreigners. In recent years, there has been a rapid expansion of
the Bhavan’ s activities, both inside the country and abroad.

Nehru and Munshi had many shared views except that
they differed occasionally in politics. The Prime Minister was
greatly pleased with Munshi’s labours in the cause of the
country’s cultural revival. “During these few years”, he wrote,
“the Bhavan had served Indian culture with ability and
perseverance and has made truly remarkable progress in many
aspects of Indian culture. The Bhavan’s past record gives
assurance that this progess will continue in the future also, and
the Bhavan will create fresh records in the service of India’s
culture”. He added that it was “a very fine institution”. The
Prime Minister took keen and sustained interest in the Bhavan’s
activities, visited its headquarters in Bombay and inaugurated its
Delhi branch in 1957.

Munshi was widely respected and admired for his
versatility and varied achievements. India’s first President, Dr.
Rajendra Prasad, declared : “I would say that I bow to him for
his versatility”. C. Rajagopalachari, who regarded munshi as his

The Man

307

younger brother, invariably stayed with him when he visited
Bombay. In a brief message on the occasion of the seventy-fifth
birthday of younger man, he recalled Munshi ’s “wonderful,
unique, dynamic personality” and his “services in the cause of
Indian culture, Indian freedom, and good administration”.
Striking a personal note, C. R. said : “He has been a most
affectionate and tolerant friend to me personally”.

Munshi was an extremely lovable person. He was
certainly proud of his achievements but he never boasted about
them. He could not stomach empty-headed and pretentious
fellows, but he avoided rudeness while telling them off. Having
himself suffered the pangs of penury in his early years, he never
forgot the anguish of the hungry and the destitute. He was a
shrewd judge of men and was always willing to listen to the
other man’s point of view. His health was not robust, but even
in the penultimate stage of his earthly existence his mental
faculties remained as sharp as before. His interest in the
numerous institutions he had built up never flagged, the
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan always claiming his first attention. He
had no money when he started it, but he was a firm believer in
the dictum that good and great causes would not suffer for want
of resources. He never stretched his hand in vain for donations.

The Bhavan today has developed like a mighty banyan
tree, with its branches spreading in all directions. It has set out
to carry India’s hoary message of peace and tolerance to the
four comers of the world. Munshi was a multifarious man who
enriched many departments of India’s national life, but the
Bhavan will remain the finest and the most durable monument to
his memory. He passed away on February 8, 1971, when he
had just entered his eighty-fourth year. He had no overweening
political ambitions; ministership was only an interlude in a busy
and varied life. His achievements in the field of culture and
literature are so massive and towering that his name will live.

■

Si I.

19, •• ! i«n i1.

'•

■ ) •

K.M. MUNSHI was a frontline freedom fighter, closely
involved with the Indian national movement. This book
explores Munshi's engagement with the Indian national
movement. It also delves into the context that preceded
the mass movement during the freedom struggle of India.

Based on a variety of sources, the contributors attempt to
historicize a nationalist icon. In the process, the reader is
presented with a holistic picture of a leading nationalist
personality, including his contradictions and ambiguities.
In this sense, the different contributions in this book
question the 'received wisdom' associated with Munshi.

This book would be of use to those interested in the
Indian national movement and the manner in which it
intersected with a range of social, cultural arid political

issues. The 'non-specialist' reader, too, will be interested

✓

in the way in which the book makes both Munshi and his
context accessible.

WT] PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
hi MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

Price : ^ 205.00

El ISBN 978-81-230-1917-8
|J BMI-ENG-REP-01 3-2014-1 5

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